
Glass 

Book 



/ 



Newspaper Libels, 

The National Capital, 



and 

Notes of Travel. 



Theodore W. Noyes. 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 
Eyron S. Adams, Printer and Publisher. 

1894. 






CONTENTS. 



Newspaper Libels : Page 

Comprehensiveness of " defamatory matter," 3 

Legal justification or excuse, 9 

( 1 ) Truth of charge, 9 

(2) Conditionally privileged publication, 11 

(3) Bona-fide criticism, 13 

Important part played by jury, 17 

Suggested changes in the law 21 

(1) For protecting the individual, 21 

(2) For protecting the press 24 

European Steam Railroad Terminals, 33 

European Street Railway Motors, 49 

Hot Springs (Ark.) Notes, 67 

Nova Scotia, Acadia and Bay of Fundy, 77 

Yellowstone Park, 91 

North Cape, 113 

Norway, 123 



PA^T II. 

Washington's Grievances : Page 

Birth of city, i 

Youth of city, 10 

Present grievances, 19 

Political conditions 31 

Future of city, 47 

The Centenary of Washington (Speech) 54 

Washington's Weecome to the G. A. R., 61 

Report as Chairman Board of Trade Committee on Bridges, 

Report as Chairman Board of Trade Committee on Pubeic 

Library, 



NEWSPAPER LIBELS. 

WHAT THE PRESS MAY NOT SAFELY PRINT. 



GRIEVOUSLY UNPROTECTED BY THE LAW, 



NEWSPAPERS ENJOY, THROUGH FAVOR OF THE 
JURY, EXCESSIVE PRIVILEGES. 

SUGGESTED CHANGES IN THE LAW. 



In America's first great libel case, the prosecution of John 
Peter Zenger in 1735, Andrew Hamilton propounded a 
riddle. He wished to be informed in concise terms what is 
a libel. The attorney-general replied with nearly five hun- 
dred words of definition. The riddle, unanswered before, 
remained and still remains unanswered, though the sphinx's 
question could hardly have elicited a longer and more 
varied list of replies. 

The causes of this failure are not a mvstery. In the first 
place the term libel included at common law a whole cata- 
logue of distinct offences, differing among themselves both in 
kind and degree " as murder does from robbing a hen-roost." 
Blackstone speaks of " blasphemous, immoral, treasonable, 
schismatical, seditious or scandalous libels." Attacks upon 
( rod, religion, morality, government and individual reputa- 
tion, whether committed by writing, picture, statue, sign or 
gesture, were huddled together under one head. 

Libel, in the modern sense, is less comprehensive. The 
incongruous constituents of the former definition, held to- 
gether only by a name, have fallen apart. Many of the 
ancient libels, if punished at all, would now be punished as 

[This Article is the Columbian University Law School First Prize Graduating Essay of 
1882, with Notes of the more important Judicial Decisions since that date.] 



^Vw 3 



blasphemy, obscenity, sedition or as contempts of court or of 
the legislative body. These offences are popularly viewed 
as distinct from libel, and have been treated separately to 
some extent by American statutes. In its simplified form 
libel seems to represent no more than certain injuries to the 
reputations of individuals, of which the vast majority at the 
present day are committed through the medium of printed 
articles in newspapers. 

But the former comprehensiveness of the term is not the 
only cause of the failures to define libel with precision. 
Even in its limited signification the word represents both a 
civil injury and a criminal offence, with different grounds of 
action according to most authorities in the two cases ; and the 
attempt to cover both kinds of libel by the same definition 
breeds confusion. The extent to which it has been specified 
what constitutes an injury to reputation, or what amounts to 
defamation, is, however, the point of widest variation among 
the definers. Perhaps the least unsatisfactory answer to the 
request to limit, with scientific accuracy, the signification of 
a general term like libel, is to give up the riddle at the out- 
set, following the example of Lord Lyndhurst, who reported 
to the House of Lords, in 1843, that all the definitions were 
either so vague as not to specify or define anything, or they 
were only rendered particular and definite by omitting some 
species of libel which ought to have been comprehended. 



WHAT CONSTITUTES A NEWSPAPER LIBEL. 

In the absence of precise definition, newspaper libels may 
be described, merely to furnish a suggestive text for the con- 
venient consideration of the subject, as such printed defama- 
tory matter, published without legal justification or excuse, as a 
jury pronounces to be deserving of punishment. To qualify 
" defamatory matter " by the word false is not necessary, 
since the truth, when it may be given in evidence, falls 
under the head of " legal justification." Nor is it practically 



important to say " malicious defamatory matter " ; for except 
to show the absence of certain legal excuses, actual malice 
need not be proved, and malicious means no more than 
wilful. 



WHAT IS "PRINTED DEFAMATORY MATTER?" 

What is the printed "defamatory matter" which, in the 
absence of a legal justification or excuse, places its publisher 
at the mercy of a jury? Jeremy Bentham is represented 
as saying, in view of the difficulty of limiting the scope of 
this term : " A libel is anything published upon my matter, 
of anybody, which anyone is pleased to dislike." Several 
classes of charges may, however, be enumerated as defam- 
atory and libellous. 

Comprehensiveness of Term Illustrated (i) by an 
Attempted Classification of Defamatory Libellous 
Charges. 

Imagine the personal satirist, who would be severe yet 
escape legal responsibility, confronted by a list of prohibited 
imputations and expressions like the following ! First, ac- 
cusations which furnish ground for an action of slander 
without proof of special damage, to wit, the charge of an 
indictable offence involving moral turpitude, the charge of 
having an infectious disease, and any charge which tends 
to injure one in his profession, trade or other business. 
Second, imputations or allusions holding one up to con- 
tempt, hatred, scorn or ridicule. Third, any accusation 
whatever, direct or indirect, which "sounds to the dis- 
reputation of another"*. Fourth, in addition to charges of 
such a character that the court can legally presume that 
the plaintiff has been " degraded in the estimation of his 
acquaintances, or of the public, or has suffered some other 
loss cither in his property, character or business, or in his 
domestic or social relations, in consequence of the publica- 

* Holt's, Hale's aud TwisdcD's rule. See Button v. Hey ward, S Mod., 21. Quoted 
approvingly in several modern cases. 



tion," which fall under the three preceding heads, all other 
charges, if there be any, will sustain actions of libel on 
proof of special damage*. But most of the authorities say 
that it is unnecessary except in aggravation of damages, to 
prove special damage in any case of libel upon a personf. 
Fifth, blasphemous, obscene and seditious publications, 
so far as they are still viewed as libels; charges blackening 
the reputation of the dead, and imputations upon classes of 
persons. 

The first three classes are actionable and indictable!, the 
fourth actionable only, the fifth indictable only. 

Comprehensiveness of Term Further Illustrated (2) by 
Discriminating Between the Latitude Allowed the 
Libeller and the Slanderer. 

The newspaper libeller, publishing printed defamatory 
matter, has not the latitude of the slanderer. Sir Benjamin 
Backbite, with the poison of asps under his lips, may with 
impunity " kill a character at every word," provided he ex- 
ercises a little ingenuity in his choice of terms. A multi- 
tude of hard names, applied verbally, can be justified by 
the old English decisions; and though in some states 
modern rulings have exploded many of the absurd distinc- 
tions formerly taken between spoken and written or printed 
accusations, enough of them have been retained everywhere 
to protect the prudent slanderer. You may not say that a 
man is a thief, but it has been held that you may speak of 
him as a " thievish rogue," for " thievish " denotes, merely, 
inclination. Or, you may safely say that he " hooked " your 
property^, and that he is a rascal, villain, liar, scoundrel, 
swindler and cheat||. You may not whisper to the com- 
munity that a man is a perjurer, but there are numerous 

* Townshend on Slander and Libel, 2-16 ; quoting from Cooper v. Stone, 2 Denio, 299. 

t Folkard's Starkie on Slander and Libel (Wood's notes), 105 J Odgers on Libel and 
Slander (Bigelow's notes), 2. 

X See discussion under note jj (page 5). 

§ Hays v. Mitchell, 7 Blackf. (Ind.). 117. 

|| Lucas v. Flinn (1872), 35 Iowa, 9 ; Kimmis v. Stiles (1871), 44 Vt., 351 ; Ford v. John- 
son (1S57), 21 Ga., 399 ; Weierbach v. Trone H841), 2 Watts & S. (Pa.), 408 ; Idol v. Jones 
fl829), 2 Dev. (N. C), 162, and cases therein cited. 



cases, ancient and modern, which will hold you safe in say- 
ing that he has " sworn falsely," or has " sworn to a lie." 
It is not prudent to speak of the object of your dislike as a 
murderer, but you may insinuate that he was " the cause of 
the death " of another, because a man might innocently 
cause another's death by accident* ; and if you live in Ver- 
mont, or are willing to go to that state for the purpose, you 
may refer to } r our enemy as a man " who snaked his mother 
out of doors by the hair of her head. It was the day before 
she died "f. By the proper inflections of voice and facial ex- 
pression these imputations may be made quite as effective as 
the prohibited charges, and so the entire list of accusations 
forbidden the slanderer may be safely insinuated, provided, 
you select epithets which will not necessarily injure a man in 
his business. It is, of course, understood, in all these cases, 
that you will do your backbiting in such a way that, how- 
ever much you may actually injure your enemy, no special 
pecuniary loss can be traced directly to your utterances. 
With these precautions, which can be readily taken, you 
may safely gratify your resentment, as far as the penalties 
of law are concerned. And there is no fairer field for the 
exercise of your ingenuity than the District of Columbia, 
where the common law on this subject is in full force, where 
the old decisions are quoted to furnish guidance!, and where 
it is not actionable in itself to charge a woman, in the most 
insulting words, with unchastityj. It thus appears that 
almost any imputation can be conveyed, orally, in a non- 
actionable form. Theoretically, the newspaper libeller has 
no such privilege. The expressions permitted the slanderer 
become, when printed and published, both actionable and 
indictable§. 



* For a recent case under this head see MeFaden v. David, decided by the 
Supreme Court of Indiana, Feb. ?,, 1882, American Law Magazine, March, 1882. 

t Billings v. Wing (1835), 7 Vt., 439. 

t Pollard v. Lyon (1875), 91 U. S., 225. 

'i Mr. Wharton, in his work on criminal law, says: "If a man write or print and 
publish of another that he is a scoundrel or villain, it is a libel and punishable as such : 
although in such cases a civil suit might not be without special damage." Bui i in- 
cuses do not seem to sustain the suggested distinction. Of those cited by Mr. Wharton 
all except one are clearly and strongly against him. In that one, Tappan v. Wilson 



6 

Comprehensiveness of Term Further Illustrated (3) by 
Quoting Certain Expressions Pronounced Libellous. 

The comprehensiveness of the term, " printed defamatory 
matter," may also be illustrated by a consideration of some 
specific charges or allusions held to be libellous. In this 
country it has been pronounced actionable to suggest of 
one, ironically, that he is insane*, to impute falsehoodf, to 
publish a ridiculing obituary notice of a living personj, or 
to print that the plaintiff will not sue in a certain county 
"because he is known there"§. English courts have held 
it libellous to impute ingratitude even by reference to the 
fable of the "Frozen Snake "|| ; to pronounce an attorney, 
ironically, " an honest lawyer "X to charge that a news- 
paper has a " usury and quack-doctor page"**, or a small 
circulation"}" f ; to call an editor a libellous journalist!!, or to 



(1835), 7 Ham. (O.), 190, it was held that terms of general abuse are not libellous, but no 
distinction was made between actionable and indictable libels, and the soundness of 
the decision, so far as it went, has been questioned. (Townshend, 254, note.) In Tllson v. 
Robbius (1878), 08 Me., 295, it is suggested that there are indictable libels which are not 
actionable without proof of special damage, but the context shows that the allusion is 
to such libels as those upon the dead, etc., which are grouped under class five in this 
essay. The court, in this case, discussed the distinctions between printed and spoken 
defamation, at length, and cited most of the cases which show the extensive range of 
actionable printed defamation. The old leading case under this head is Villars v. 
Monsley (1769), 2 Wils., 403, which says: " A libel is punishable both criminally and 
by action, when speaking the words would not be punishable in either way ; for speak- 
ing the words rogue and rascal of anyone an action will not lie ; but if those words were 
written and published of any one I doubt not an action could lie." In Williams v. 
Games, 4 Humph. (Tenn.), 9, to write, " I look upon him as a rascal" was held actiona- 
ble. See also Mayrant v. Richardson, 1 Nott & McCord (S. C), 347 ; Tryon v. Evening 
News Association (1878), 39 Mich., 636; White v. Nicholls (1844), 3 How. (U. S.), 226, 
and cases cited therein. In the last-mentioned case the Supreme Court says : "Ac- 
tions may be maintained for defamatory words published in writing or print which 
would not have been actionable if spoken." And in Pollard v. Lyon, 91 U. S., 225, they 
say: " Written slander is punishable in certain cases, both criminally and by action, 
where the mere speaking of the words would not be punishable either way." Other 
authorities sustaining the text, on strength of these and numerous additional cases, are 
Townshend (245 and 246, and note on 68) ; Starkie (25, 230 to 236, and Wood"s notes on 
these pages) ; Shortt (Law of Works of Literature and Art, 412 and 413), and Addison on 
Torts (3d edition), 766. 

* Southwick v. Stevens (1813), 10 Johns. (N. Y ), 443. 

t Lindley v. Horton (1858), 27 Conn., 58. 

X McBride v. Ellis (1856), 9 Rich. (S. C), 313. 

I Cooper v. Greeley (1845), 1 Denio (N. Y.), 347. 

|| Hoare v. Silverlock, 12 Q. B. (Ad. & El.), 624. 

fl Boydell v. Jones, 4 M. & W., 446. 
** Russell et al v. Webster (1874), 23 W. R., 59. 
ft Heriot v. Stuart, 1 Esp. Cas., 437. 
Wakley v. Cooke et al, 4 Exch., 511. 



publish a ridiculous story told by a man concerning him- 
self *. The law in the District is far from restricting the scope 
of the term by any local peculiarities. The definitions by 
the judges follow closely the old forms f. In a certain Dis- 
trict case a publication intended as a joke on one person, but 
which by way of introduction imputed to another that he had 
suspected a lady of taking goods from his store and had fol- 
lowed her, and which spoke of the lady as being " grossly 
insulted," was pronounced a libel upon number two, and on 
the first trial of the suit damages to the amount of $3,000 
were given J. 

Comprehensiveness of Term Further Illustrated (4) by 
Considering Expressions Pronounced Non-actionable. 

A partial consideration of the few expressions which have 
been pronounced non-actionable may be of interest, not 
only as aiding to define what is defamatory matter, but also 
as showing the unlimited extent to which the law of libel 
has been thought by some lawyers and clients to extend. 
The courts have felt themselves able to say that it is not 
libellous to publish that the " Mississippi bard foameth "§, 
that an allopathic physician consulted with homoeopath ists||, 
that one pleaded the statute of limitations^, there being 
no imputation of dishonesty, that the plaintiff has sued his 
mother-in-law in the county court** ; or to charge an inten- 
tion to put money into Wall street for shaving purposes, 
" shaving" being held to mean merely the discounting of 
securitiesft, or the unauthorized publication of an unobjec- 
tionable private letterj|. In Tappan v. Wilson (1835), 7 



* Cook v. Ward (1830), Bing., 409. 

t See Judge MacArthur's definition in a civil case, Washington Star, Feb. 22, 1^72; 
Judge Carter in a civil case, Star, Nov. 29, 1872 ; Judge Cox in a criminal case. Star, Feb. 
23, 1882. 

X Prince v. Evening Star Co. See Star, Feb., 1872. On new trial verdict for defendant. 
I Kinyon v. Palmer (1805), 18 Iowa, 377. 
|| Clay v. Roberts (1863), 8 L. T ., 397. 
\ Bennett v. Williamson, 4 Saudf. (N. Y.), (JO. 
** Cox v. Cooper (18(13), 9 L. T., 329. 
tt Stone v. Cooper, 2 Denio (N. Y.), 293. 

XX Bacon v. Beach (1847), 5 N. Y. Legal Observer, 448 ; Townshend (249) cites this case 
incorrectly, as establishing that such publication is actionable. 



8 

Ham. (0.), 190, it was held that mere general abuse, not 
imputing any crime or immorality, or holding one up to 
ridicule, or producing actual damage, is not libellous. And 
to charge one with being " a purse-proud aristocrat," with 
gratifying a propensity to misrepresentation, etc., was pro- 
nounced not actionable, as not calculated seriously to degrade 
the plaintiff. This case is in opposition to the tendenc}' of 
other decisions, and Mr. Townshend, the author of the lead- 
ing American work on libel, says that it cannot be considered 
as authority*. In Geisler v. Brown (1877), 6 Neb., 254, it 
was held not actionable per se to publish of a woman in a 
newspaper that she is " an inhuman stepmother — she beats 
her child over the head with a club." Mr. Bigelow, the 
American editor of " Odgers on Libel," pronounces this a 
shocking doctrinet. It appears, then, that the soundness 
of the only decisions from which the prospective libeller can 
derive much comfort has been strongly questioned. [In 
1887 it was pronounced not libellous in Illinois to print 
that a lawyer was a " crank," that word not having been 
sufficiently long in use to have a distinct defamatory signifi- 
cance, without an allegation or innuendo as to the sense in 
which it was used. Walker v. Chicago Tribune, 29 Federal 
Reporter, 827. Use of the epithet in print would probably 
not now be safe.] 

Comprehensiveness of Term Further Illustrated (5) by 
Reference to Indirect Charges and Allusions Forbidden. 

Not only is the libeller denied the use of expressions de- 
famatory on their face in which the slanderer may indulge, 
but he is also forbidden the latter's privilege of insinuating 
what he may not say. The cases show that responsibility is 
not lessened by putting the libel in figurative or allegorical 
language, or by suggesting it in the form of a question, or 
by stating ironically the opposite of what is intended, or by 
using only the initials of a name, or hieroglyphics, if the 

* Townshend, 254, note, 
t Odgers, 2">, note. 



application to the person intended can be perceived. Lia- 
bility is not removed by the fact that the libellous statement 
was received from another, and that upon publication the 
author's name was disclosed*. " It is reported," " it is said," 
" they say," " alleged," or other expressions indicating that 
the libel is but the reiteration of a current rumor, do not 
protectf. So crediting to another paper is of no avail ex- 
cept in mitigation of damages^, and even when a news- 
paper added " Fudge ! " to a quoted flibpllft^ fpara^rlp p 
responsibility was not removed, but it was left to the jury to 
determine with what motive the word was inserted!. 
Thus is newspaper ingenuity discouraged. 



WHAT IS "LEGAL JUSTIFICATION OR 
EXCUSE"? 

It seems that disparaging utterances, almost without ex- 
ception, are defamatory, libellous, actionable, and presuma- 
bly punishable. The question now arises, what defamatory 
matter may one publish and escape punishment on the 
ground of legal justification or excuse ? 

(i) The Truth of the Charge. 

The truth of the libellous charge is now a complete defence 
against a civil suit, and an element of defence against a 
criminal prosecution. At common law the rule was other- 
wise as to criminal libels, but statutes making the truth a 
defence in such cases, when published with good motives 
and for justifiable ends, are now, perhaps, universal. Even 
the District of Columbia boasts such a statute, passed in 
1865, while the common law rules concerning libel are in 

* Dole v. Lyon, 10 John. (X. Y.), 44C ; Buckley v. Knapp, 48 Mo., 152. 

t Johnston v. Lance, 7 Ired. (N. C), 448 ; Skinner v. Powers, 1 Wend. (N. Y.), 451 ; 
Johnson v. St. Louis Dispatch Co., 65 Mo., 511. 

t Sans v. Jaerris, 14 Wis., Gf>3 ; Hotchkins v. Oliphant, 2 mil jj. )Y.), 510. 

I English case. Hunt v. Algar, 6 C and P., 245. Decided in 1833. The fact that 
libellous story is accompanied by statement of disbelief in its truth is no defence ; Com. 
v. Chambers, L5 Philadelphia reports, II",. 



10 

force in all other respects. The advisability of this change 
is no longer a subject of discussion, and those who wish to 
make further amendment of the law of libel, but are some- 
what appalled by the testimony of learned writers as to the 
excellence of existing regulations, may derive encouragement 
from the fact that the highest encomiums were formerly lav- 
ished by great lawyers upon a rule now universally con- 
demned. Each generation proclaims that it is rid of the 
absurd laws of the past, and flatters itself that there is little 
room for improvement in its own regulations. Holt, in his 
time, commented upon the former harshness and uncertainty 
of the law of libel in the same spirit which led Cockburn, at 
a later day, to suggest that only recent years have seen the 
law develop into anything like a satisfactory and settled 
form. 

In civil cases the truth alone is a defence, no matter how 
much spite the writer may have betrayed, or how severe an 
injury he may have inflicted. If one enjoys an undeserved 
reputation, he can obtain no compensation for the loss of it. 
Practically, however, this privilege is not a reliable protec- 
tion to the malicious libeller. His feelings are almost cer- 
tain to carry him beyond the truth in some particular asser- 
tion or insinuation ; and to be privileged, the charge must 
be strictly true. The justification must be as broad as the 
charge and of the very accusation attempted to be justified. 
A person who has stolen only one hog cannot be accused of 
stealing " hogs "*. It has been held sufficient, however, to 
justify so much of the defamation as constitutes the sting of 
the charge. Not every epithet or term of general abuse 
need be verified, and the privilege will not be lost by reason 
of a slight inaccuracy, if the matter is substantially provedf. 
The restrictions upon this defence, which apply in both 
civil and criminal cases, make the plea a dangerous one to 
rely upon. If the publication cannot be justified, the ex- 



* Swan v. Rary (1833), 3 Blackf., 298. 

+ Gwynn v. South Eastern Railway Co., 18 Law Times, N. S., 738. Decided in 1868. 
See al90 Odgers, 157 (foot paging) ; Townshend,338 ; Starkie, 528. 



11 

tent to which it is true, or an honest belief in its truth, 
may be shown, in mitigation of damages in a suit, as rebut- 
ting the presumption of malice*. 

(2) Conditionally Privileged Publications. 

There are other imputations which may be printed with 
impunity, because the public welfare demands their publi- 
cation. They are said to be conditionally privileged, and 
are protected, on the ground of legal excuse, in the absence 
of malice on the part of the publisher. The newspapers of 
to-day may print fair reports of the proceedings of legisla- 
tive bodies with impunity, even though they contain matter 
defamatory of individuals. It was only after a long strug- 
gle that the privilege was gained in England. Samuel 
Johnson was by no means the last reporter who was com- 
pelled to prepare elaborate accounts of imaginary parlia- 
mentary proceedings in the seclusion of a garret. The sub- 
ject is said to have been first directly presented for adjudi- 
cation in 1867f. The same privilege is granted in respect 
to judicial proceedings. The report, if abridged, must be fair 
and accurate, presenting the evidence upon which defamatory 
speeches of counsel are based. Comments upon the report 
are not privileged under this head. Care must, therefore, be 
taken in preparing headings for accounts of judicial pro- 
ceedings, as the former may be libellous though the latter 
are not. As a rule, if the heading states accurately the 
charge made in the report, it is protected. But a slight 
variation or exaggeration may cause the privilege to be lost. 
For instance, in Bishop v. Latimer (1861), 4 Law Times 
N. S., 775, the heading " How lawyer B. treats his clients," 
was held actionable, the report showing lawyer B.'s treat- 
ment of only one of his clients. By analogy, reports of 
proceedings before a committee of a legislative body, acting 
to some extent as a public court, are protected. The 

* Huson v. Dale, 19 Mich., 17, decided in 1869, and other cases cited in Odgers, 17C, 
note. (For a discussion of the subject of malice in its bearing upon libel, see Scripps 
v. Reilly, 35 Mich., 371 (1877), and 38 Mich., 10 (1878).) 

t Wason v. Walter, 4 Q. B., 7:;. 



12 

privilege is also now extended to proceedings publicly 
conducted before a magistrate, whether the accused permits 
them to be ex-parte or makes his defence*. But the 
publication of ex-parte affidavits made to secure the arrest 
of a personf, of the report of a grand juryj, or of the 
scaffold speech of a murderer§ [or a petition for the dis- 
barment of an attorney filed in the office of the clerk of 
court (Cowley v. Pulsifer, 137 Mass., 392), or a declaration 
or complaint filed in court on the commencement of a suit 
(Rowe v. Detroit Free Press, Washington Law Reporter, Oct. 
31, 1885)], is not privileged ; nor are reports of proceedings 
at public meetings ||, before grand juries!, or > perhaps, at 
coroner's inquests**. 

Defamation is sometimes privileged, because the charge 
is made in good faith in the performance of some official 
or social duty, but the courts, it is said, have not recognized 
a duty on the part of newspapers to publish defamatory 
matter, even though the subject be one in respect to which 
the public is interestedft. So a privilege arises where a 
defendant has an interest in the subject-matter, and the 
person to whom the communication is made has a corre- 
sponding interest. A newspaper can, however, rarely profit 
b}' this rule, since, if the communication be made to others 
than those interested, it generally loses its privilege, and 
this result is almost inevitable in the event of publication 
in a widely-circulated newspaper! t. In a few cases such 
communication to persons not interested has been held not 
not to take away the privilege§§. 

* McBee v. Fulton, 47 Mrt., 403(1877). The point is thoroughly considered, and the 
earlier decisions in Stanley v. Webb (1850), 4 Sandf. (N. Y.), 121, and Matthews v. Beach 
(1851), 5 Sandf. (N. Y.), 256, are disregarded. 

t Cincinnati Gazette Co. v. Timberlake (1800), 10 Ohio, N. S., 548 ; Stanley v. Webb 
4 Sandf. (N. Y.), 127. But see McBee v. Fulton ante, and Stacy v. Portland Pub. Co., 68 
Maine, 279. 

| Rector v. Smith, 11 Iowa, 302. 
§ Sandford v. Bennett (1861), 24 N. Y., 20. 

|| Lewis v. Few, 5 Johns., 1 ; Davison v. Duncan, 7 El. & B., 231 (English case). See, 
also, Townshend 381 and Odgers 259. But see Briggs v. Garrett, 11 1 Pa. St. Rep. (188C), 404. 
«1 McCabe v. Caldwell (1865), 18 Abb. Pra. R. (N. Y.), 377. 
** Storey v. Wallace, 60 111., 51. 

tt Foster v. Scripps, 39 Mich., 376, and 41 Mich., 742. Other cases under note fifty- four. 
It Hunt v. Bennett, 19 N. Y., 173. 

$ Hatch v. Lane, 105 Mass., 391 ; warning against payment of bill to an ex-employee. 
Shurtletl' v. Stevens, 51 Vt., 501. 



13 

Bona-fide Criticism. 

Comments or criticisms upon matters of public interest 
are, perhaps, more properly viewed, not as privileged publi- 
cations or excusable libels, but as defamation which is not 
libellous, since their true character may be shown to the 
the jury under the plea that there is no libel*. They are 
conditionally privileged, however, to the extent that proof of 
actual malice makes the circumstances of their publication 
unavailable in any shape for the defendant's protection. 
And if it be stated that juries may and do consider the 
excuse of criticism, and, in deciding what defamation is 
deserving of punishment, are often influenced by this plea 
to exhibit unusual leniency towards newspapers, there will 
be, perhaps, no objection to a discussion of the subject under 
this head, where for some reasons it will be more conveni- 
ently treated. Newspapers may comment upon the admin- 
istration of general or local government in any of its 
branches, upon the conduct of public men, upon books, 
paintings, public entertainments, and upon any acts or pro- 
ducts of a person to which public attention is invited by 
him. According to Mr. Townshend, actions or things may 
be criticised, but individuals may not be disparaged except 
so far as fair criticism upon their acts or productions may 
indirectly affect them. 

Comment upon Authors, Painters and Actors. 

None of the cases seem to oppose this view so far as 
books, paintings or other articles submitted to the public for 
inspection are concernedf. Criticism of this indirect kind 
is not, however, confined within narrow limits. There is an 
element of retribution in the severity of comment permitted 
the press, in respect to dramatic and literary productions. 
The first English newspaper was ridiculed by Ben Jonson, 
and the early papers fared badly at the hands of Fletcher, 

Odgers, 33 and (16. 
t Gott v. Pulsifcr (1*77), 122 Mass., 235 (Cardiff Giant case); Cooper v. Stone, 24 
Wend. (N. Y.), 1-4 ; Reede v. Sweetzer, 6 Abb. Pr. (N. Y.), 9. English case of strim- v. 
Francis, 1 F. & F., 1108, and recent case of Whistler v. Ruskin. 



14 

Shirley and other playwrights. Samuel Johnson and other 
literary potentates had their satiric say about the newspaper 
writer. Now the tables are turned. 

Comment upon Public Officers and Candidates. 

Mr. Townshend, in discriminating between attacks upon 
things and upon persons, holds in accordance with his 
theory, that the private character of public men is no more 
the subject of criticism than that of others, and that the 
acts of private individuals are as properly the subject of crit- 
icism as those of public men. Many cases, however, dis- 
criminate between the acts of public and private persons, 
and a few recognize a distinction between attacks upon the 
moral character of officers and candidates, and similar as- 
saults directed against other persons. Lord Chief Justice 
Cockburn, who gave considerable latitude to the press, held 
that the integrity, honesty and honor of a public man, which 
are indispensable to his fitness to occupy the position which he 
holds, may be the subject of hostile criticism, and as news- 
papers are not supposed to be infallible, slight errors, par- 
ticularly in political discussions, are excusable*. Erie, C. J., 
in Turnbull v. Ward, 2 F. & F., 508, declared in substance 
that this privilege would be lost if misstatements of fact 
were made through malice or lack of ordinary care. In 
Mott v. Dawson, 46 Iowa, 533, it is held that words 
spoken of a candidate in good faith, believing them to be 
true and having reasonable cause to so believe, are priv- 
ileged though they impute dishonesty. In Palmer v. City 
of Concord, 48 N. H., 211, it is held that a newspaper may, 
in good faith, on reasonable grounds, affirm a mal-adminis- 
tration of office. [See to same effect Marks v. Baker, 28 
Minn., 162, and Copeland v. Express Printing Co. (1883) 64 
Tex., 354 ; Miner v. Detroit Post, 49 Mich., 358 ; Briggs v. 
Garrett, 111 Pa. St. Reports (1886), 404.] But cases like the 
foregoing are few in number, and the great mass of Ameri- 

* Campbell v. Spottiswoode, 3 F & F., 421 (1863); Seymour v. Butterworth (1862), 2 
F. & F., 372, and, especially, Hunter v. Sharp (1866), 4 F. & F., 983. 



15 

can decisions protect the moral character of public officers 
and candidates, in theory, as effectually as the reputations 
of other individuals ; and no privilege whatever is held to 
arise in respect to such assaults*. 

Comment upon Editors and Newspapers. 

The same rule extends even to editors, and theoretically, 
they too are defended by the law from calumny. There are 
English cases which maintain that, while a newspaper may 
be criticised as slangy, scurrilous or vulgar, the private char- 
acter of writers may not be attacked ; and, even of a news- 
paper, you may not say that it has a small circulation, for 
you touch the proprietor in the line of his business. [Where 
two parties engage in a newspaper controversy and hurl 
abusive epithets at each other, neither should receive dam- 
ages from the other. Bigney v. Benthuysen, 36 La. 
Ann. Rep. (1884), 38. See also McCarty v. Pugh, 40 Ga. 
(1869) 444.] As a matter of fact, editors, when defamed 
are popularly supposed to be able to take care of themselves 
without the aid of the law, and juries are not apt to view 
strictures upon them as punishable libels. The latitude al- 
lowed, practically, in the criticism of candidates, officers and 
rival editors, finds explanation only in a consideration of the 
part played by the jury. 



NEWSPAPERS ENJOY NO PECULIAR LEGAL 
PRIVILEGES. 

The justifications and excuses which have been discussed 
are not the exclusive privilege of newspapers. In theory, 
their proprietors are on precisely the same footing as other 
individuals in respect to rights and liabilities under the 

* The subject of attacks upon officers and candidates is thoroughly discussed in 
two recent cases, Hamilton v. Eno (1880), 81 N. Y., 116, and Sweeney v. Baker ( 1878), 13 
\V. Va., 158. Other interesting cases are Littlejohn v. Greeley < 1S61), i:i Abb. Pr. I X. Y. i, 
11 ; A Id rich v. Press Printing Co. (1864), 9 Minn., 138 ; Com. v. Clap (1808), 1 Mass., 163 ; 
Curtis v. Mussey (1856), 6 Gray (Mass.), 261. [See also Rearick v. Wilson, 81 111., 77; 
Bronson v. Bruce, 59 Mich. (1886), 167; Wucaton v. Beecher. 33 X. W. Reporter 
(1887), 503 ; Farrow v. Negley (1882), 60 Md , 177 ; Tenneesse v. Nashville Banner (1885), 
16 Lea, 176.] 



16 

libel laws*. A strict enforcement of the law would make 
the position of a newspaper owner a most unenviable one. 

Extensive Responsibility of Newspaper Proprietor. 

His responsibility is very extensive. He is liable, civilly, 
for everything that is published in his columns, even though 
a libel appears in his absence, without his knowledge or 
against his express prohibitionf. Criminally, his re- 
sponsibility is somewhat less, by statute in England 
and according to a few cases in this country J. But 
even against a prosecution, lack of knowledge is no de- 
fence unless circumstances forbid the presumption that 
his ignorance indicates a criminal neglect to exercise 
proper care and supervision over his subordinates^. He is 
liable, though the defamation is in the shape of an advertise- 
ment!. He may become a libeller through a mistake of 
the printer; as where the latter published the name of a 
certain firm under the heading " First meetings under the 
Bankruptc} 7 Act," instead of under " Dissolutions of Part- 
nership." Ample apology in the next issue, though no malice 
or special damage was proved, did not prevent award of 
damages || . While his responsibility for what appears in 
his paper is so extensive, he is at the same time driven by 
public expectation and demand not merely to expose him- 
self to suit by pointing out evils that threaten the commu- 
nity, but to print daily a great mass of matter under cir- 
cumstances of haste and excitement which render inadvertent 
libels, at some time or another, almost unavoidable. Yet 
the law gives to him no greater privileges than to private 
individuals. 



* See cases under note * (page 15) ; also Sheckell v. Jackson, 10 Gush. (Mass.), 25; 
Snyder v. Fulton (1871), 31 Md., 128. 

t Dunn v. Hall (1840), 1 Ind., 344; Huff v. Bennett (1850), 4 Sandf. (N. Y.), 120. 
On the general subject of newspaper liability see Corn. v. Morgan (1871), 107 Mass., 199; 
Storey V.Wallace (1871), 60 111., 51 ; Detroit Post Co. v. McArthur (1868), 16 Mich., 417; 
Scripps v. Rcilly (1878), 38 Mich., 10 ; Smith v. Ashley (1840), 11 Met. (Mass.), 367, and 
cases under note * (page 15). 

J Com. v. Morgan (1871), 107 Mass., 199. See 136 Mass., 441. 

'i English case. Harrison t. Pearce, 1 F. & F., 567. 

|| English case, Shepheard v. Whitaker (1875), L. R. 10 C P., 502. 



17 

Newspaper Proprietor Receives Additional Protection in 
Fact, Though not by Theory of Law. 

Practically, however, he receives additional protection. 
Mr. Shortt, in his " Law of Works of Literature and Art," 
says: "The newspaper writer stands in this respect in no 
different position from any other member of the community, 
save so far as a jury may be inclined to deal more leniently 
with defamatory matter contained in his publications." In 
the same direction, Mr. Odgers, the latest English writer on 
the subject of libel, remarks : " Newspaper writers, though 
in strict law they stand in no better position than any other 
person, are generally allowed greater latitude by juries." 



THE PART PLAYED BY THE JURY. 

These quotations suggest the important part which juries, 
or other representatives of public opinion, have always 
played in respect to the subject under consideration, and 
lead us to the third test of newspaper libel, namely, that it 
must be pronounced deserving of punishment by a jury. 
On the one hand, defamatory expressions seem to cover 
everything. On the other hand, there is the effort to make 
the privilege of newspapers equally comprehensive. In the 
resulting uncertainty the jury, as an umpire, comes promi- 
nently to the front. It has power to decide the question of 
libel or no libel, not only in criminal proceedings, but also 
in civil cases, after a definition of libel in law by the court, 
according to the English rule, which prevails in some of 
the states ; and everywhere it has this privilege, when the 
words are ambiguous, or there is evidence tending to change 
their natural meaning*. For these reasons juries have 
been judicially pronounced " the true guardians of the 
liberty of the press "f. The powers thus given have been 
exercised. 



* See cases cited in American editor's note, Odgers. 88 (foot paging), 
t R. v. Sullivan, 11 Cox C C, 52. 



18 

Variation Between Public Opinion and the Letter of 

the Law. 

The letter of the law has always received, in application, 
important modifications springing from the habits and feel- 
ings of the community. Theoretically, the safeguards 
against libel are ample even to oppressiveness. But the 
press is not restrained. It is known to all that there are in 
eveiy large city newspaper presses from which issue, daity, 
streams of libellous matter ; and there is hardly any news- 
paper, however reputable its character, which does not fre- 
quently publish items that are actionable and indictable in 
the eye of the law. Yet indictments are rare and not much 
is recovered in actions for damages. 

Effect in the Past of the Variation Between Public 
Sentiment and the Law. 

The variation between public feeling as to the offence and 
the law on the subject, which to-day prevents hundreds of 
actions from being brought, and which causes juries to per- 
mit many who are, technically, libellers to go unpunished, 
lias always existed ; and in earlier times and other lands it 
made the defamer's punishment uncertain, and robbed the 
severe penalties threatened by law of many of their terrors. 
England may be selected as a single example. The law of 
Alfred, which punished slanderers by cutting out the tongue 
unless redeemed by the price ot the offender's head, was an 
appropriate introduction to the penalties by which, when 
writing came to prevail generally, it was attempted to sup- 
press libels. Bacon says, in his history of Henry VII : 
" Swarms and volleys of libels sprang forth containing bitter 
invectives against the king; for which five common people 
suffered death." There are other instances in English his- 
tory where libels construed to be seditious have brought 
capital punishment upon their authors. The list of penal- 
ties for criminal libel included fine and imprisonment, ex- 
posure in the pillory to be pelted with rotten eggs and offal, 
whipping, branding, loss of ears, and burning of the libellous 



19 

matter by the hangman. The truth was no defence, and 
frequently what the law declared to be an infamous crime 
public opinion pronounced not merely innocent but praise- 
worthy, and the pilloried libeller was viewed as a martyr, 
not as a criminal. As the regulation of the Decemviri, 
which threatened Roman detainers with the death penalty, 
was gradually nullified by popular sentiment, as often as 
revived by later tyrants, and libellers flourished though the 
sword was suspended over them, so were the severe English 
laws made ineffective as a means of restraint by a public 
disapprobation which rendered their enforcement uncertain. 
And libellers, encouraged by the sentiment of the community, 
showed so little fear of the law as to furnish a foundation 
for Warburton's venomous remark that " scribblers have not 
the common sense of other vermin, who usually abstain 
from mischief when they see any of their kind gibbeted or 
nailed up as terrible examples." Public opinion did not, 
however, always avail to save offenders against whom parti- 
san hatred was aroused. The laws then became instruments 
of oppression, and a few individuals were made to suffer the 
severest penalties for violating rules which their fellows were 
permitted to disregard with impunity. Some of the in- 
stances of this discrimination are historical. Prynne suf- 
fered long imprisonment and heavy fines, was degraded 
from the bar, was twice pilloried, was deprived of both ears 
and was branded on both cheeks. De Foe, in addition to 
tine and imprisonment on two occasions, was also exposed 
in the pillory. Wrennum, for libelling Lord Bacon in a 
book presented to the king, was sentenced to pay a fine of 
XT ,000, to be twice pilloried, to lose both ears, and to be per- 
petually imprisoned. Yet these and the other unfortuna t< ss 
were only a few out of thousands of defamers. Not the 
obscure alone, but the great men of the times, were bitter 
libellers; for the English-speaking peoples are satirical and 
dearly love to hold up their adversaries to contempt and 
ridicule. The lives of Prynne and De Foe cover, in point of 



20 

time, the period in which in succession Milton, Dryden, 
Pope and Swift lived and wrote. Most of the punished libels 
were mere pleasantries compared with the virulent attacks 
upon their enemies by these authors. The coarse epithets 
employed by Milton in his political controversies ; Dryden's 
cutting satires, directed not only against public men but 
against the private character of individuals, as in the case of 
the poet Shadwell ; Pope's spiteful and venomous epigrams, 
with a hornet-sting in every other word, and Swift's malig- 
nant calumnies, are libels of the most aggravated type. 
Compositions which consigned some men to the pillory, to 
the dungeon, and to personal mutilation, gave to others 
literary fame. 

Analogous Effect in Modern Times of Variation Between 
Public Sentiment and the Law. 

The condition of affairs to-day is analogous. There is a 
similar uncertainty of punishment in conformity with the 
strict letter of the law, raised by a public opinion, which 
encourages the writer without always protecting him ; for 
juries cannot be relied upon in every case to give voice to 
popular sentiment. Penalties have moderated, but the im- 
pression of the importance of the freedom of the press, and 
the idea of what constitutes that freedom, have enlarged in 
even greater proportion. The public, in determining 
whether a libel should be punished, is likely to be moved 
towards mercy, even to the straining of the law by two 
influences: (1) the feeling that the laws as they exist are 
too severe in the extensive scope of their application and in 
the penalties which they permit to be imposed in prosecu- 
tions for trivial libels ; (2) a vague idea that the press 
should be as free as possible, based, perhaps, upon the re- 
flection that libel laws were formerly used as means of tyr- 
anny, and that the newspapers in obtaining for themselves 
a partial liberty have advanced the cause of individual 
freedom 



21 

SUGGESTED CHANGES IN THE LAW OF LIBEL. 

The elements of a libel have now been considered, and 
the existing law on the subject, both in its theory and 
its practical workings, has been incidentally discussed. 
Numerous suggestions of amendment have been made, 
and a few of the proposed changes may appropriately be 
examined. 

The purpose of libel laws is to protect individual reputa- 
tion and preserve public tranquility with the least restraint 
upon the right of free discussion. On the one side is the 
individual — his private life, perhaps, invaded, his feelings 
outraged — defended by laws too severe and not enforced. 
On the other side is the press — long persecuted, now par- 
tially shielded as an exposer of public evils by popular 
sentiment. 



CHANGES FOR THE BETTER PROTECTION OF 
THE INDIVIDUAL. 

The vast circulation of newspapers gives them a power to 
affect individual reputation by evil report in comparison 
with which other agencies of distribution are insignificant. 
Those who deserve denunciation fear nothing else so much 
as the exposure of their rascalities by the press ; and the 
keenness of suffering and the extent of injury inflicted are 
all the greater when the innocent are the victims. For 
" who can see worse days than he that, yet living, doth fol- 
low in the funeral of his own reputation ? "* 

Necessity of Additional Protection for the Individual. 

What can the libelled person do? It is no longer popular 
to obtain satisfaction by a duel. Pistols are sometimes relied 
upon, however, as in the Kalloch case in San Francisco, and 
the Soteldo affair in this city. But the murder of the editor 

* Bacon's charge against Lumsden. 



22 

is hardly considered, as yet, to be a safe and satisfactory 
method of redress. Horse- whipping has been discouraged, 
not so much by the law of assaults, as by the invention of 
" fighting editors." Pummelling with fists, after the Mc- 
Garrahan-Piatt model, is held vulgar. It is generally vain 
to answer back. " Witty calumnies and licentious raillery 
are airy nothings that float about us, invulnerable from 
their nature like those chimeras of hell which the sword of 
/Eneas could not pierce." Men laugh at a spicy attack 
and yawn over an indignant, sympathy-seeking reply. 
Moreover, talking back is apt to involve the libelled in a 
war of words with the editor, in which the latter has the ad- 
vantage of position and the last whisper in the ear of the 
public. Nor do his legal remedies seem to protect him. 
Thousands of unpunished libels appear every year. A con- 
sideration of the liberal views sometimes held by juries, an 
apprehension of the advertisement of all one's misdoings 
and shortcomings which a libel suit involves, and a dread 
of the resentment of the offending paper, restrain many 
movements for redress. For newspapers under slight prov- 
ocation are apt to play the bully, and however a suit or 
prosecution may result, to crush the libelled in the end 
under an avalanche of calumnies. Prosecutions are not 
frequent. Public sentiment is not disposed to consider libels 
generally as misdemeanors to be punished with the severity 
which the precedents justify. Yet in many cases the injury 
to the libelled cannot be represented in dollars and cents ; 
and a judgment of damages is inadequate as a punishment 
against the very wealthy and ineffective against the penni- 
less. The most scurrilous newspapers are not the respect- 
able and thriving sheets which can satisfy judgments against 
them, but a lower class, which having little or no property 
or reputation to forfeit, view a civil action merely as a good 
advertisement. In this condition of affairs, how is the in- 
dividual to be protected ? 



23 

(i) Strictly Enforce Laws Prescribing Moderate Penal- 
ties for False and Actually Malicious Libel. 

If false and actually malicious defamation should be dis- 
criminated from other forms of disparagement, and be univer- 
sally viewed as a misdemeanor to be punished with certainty 
by a fine or imprisonment sufficiently moderate to be en- 
forced, an improvement might be effected. While pros- 
ecutions are permitted for every trivial libel, and while juries 
are uncertain as to what amount of punishment through 
the whim or prejudice of a judge a verdict of guilty may in- 
flict, indictments will, perhaps, be as rare and as unsuccessful 
as a means of restraint as at present. If the objection of 
severe penalties indiscriminately applicable to offences, some 
deserving and others not deserving such punishment, be 
obivated, there will be ground to hope that in respect to the 
former class the law may be enforced. 

(2) Draw a Line Between Public and Private Persons. 

For further protection of the individual a distinction 
should be steadily maintained between libels upon public 
and private persons. The former are now popularly looked 
upon as exposing their reputations to fire as soldiers endan- 
ger their bodies in battle. But the private citizen does not 
announce himself a target for libellous shafts, and statute 
law in France, making a discrimination, expressly forbids 
the recital of his weaknesses unless they come to light in a 
judicial proceeding. As we have seen, most of the American 
decisions draw no line between public and private persons 
in respect to assaults upon moral character. But in prac- 
tice the former are not defended, and the law for their pro- 
tection is not strictly enforced. It is better to discriminate 
judicially, rather than, by confusing the two classes, to per- 
mit the license allowed practically in respect to one to extend 
gradually to the other. 



24 

(3) Minor Suggestions. 

Numbers of minor suggestions have been offered with a 
view to facilitate the remedy of the libelled, as for instance 
that such cases be given priority in point of time over most 
other classes, in order to remove the objection that, ordi- 
narily, the trial comes too late to be a complete and satis- 
factory vindication of character. 



CHANGES FOR THE BETTER PROTECTION OF 
THE PRESS. 

It may seem inconsistent to urge that newspapers, .too, need 
protection after what has been said of the unhappy lot of 
the individual. But if practice under the law too often bears 
harshly upon the latter, the law itself is rigorous in respect 
to the former, and papers frequently suffer annoyance and 
damage from its strict enforcement. Recent indictments 
are numbered by dozens, not by hundreds, but the list is 
sufficiently long to fill every newspaper with a sense of in- 
securit}', for while the law is in its present shape not one 
may be said to be safe. Heavy fines and imprisonment 
were recently imposed in certain New Jersey prosecutions. 

Necessity of Additional Protection for the Press. 

It is vain to appeal to experience as proving that the press 
is protected in spite of the law, when such outrages may be 
perpetrated as that inflicted by the notorious Jim Fisk, Jr. 
upon Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican, who, while 
visiting New York, was whisked off to Ludlow street jail 
and locked up over night on a charge of criminal libel. In 
respect to civil suits, the condition of affairs is also unsatis- 
factory. Not a vast amount of money has been recovered 
from newspapers within the last ten years; but, in 1873, 
investigation disclosed that 756 libel suits were pending in 
which $47,500,000 in damages were claimed. Many of 
these suits never came to trial, and many were never in- 



25 

tended to be tried, the announcement of them being pre- 
sented to the public as the substitute for a denial of the 
charge where circumstances made a direct contradiction un- 
safe or unadvisable. In other cases — though, perhaps, the 
cause of action was trivial and no damages were recovered 
in the end — the suits, being pressed, brought annoyance and 
expense to the newspapers ; for the law on its face is harsh, 
juries are uncertain, compromises to escape the worry of 
litigation are not unknown, and there are speculative 
lawyers to be tempted and to tempt. London is not the 
only great city of which it may be said : 

" Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay, 
And here the fell attorney prowls for prey. " 

As already suggested, the amount, if any, paid as dam- 
ages is by no means the only expense, and not always the 
heaviest item of outlay, involved in a libel suit. The Lon- 
don Times, in 1840, after its exposure of a colossal swind- 
ling conspiracy on the continent, was compelled to expend 
nearly $25,000 in obtaining the testimony from different 
parts of Europe necessary to its defence*. Extraordinary 
damages, too, are sometimes given, through a whim of the 
jury, under circumstances which seem to forbid a verdict 
for the plaintiff. 

(i) Strictly Enforce Laws Prescribing Moderate Penal- 
ties for False and Actually Malicious Libel. 

The same changes which will benefit the public by pro- 
viding certain penalties for the most injurious libels, will 
also cause the press to be no longer exposed to the danger 
of unjust punishment for trivial or unintentional disparage- 
ments. With the subject-matter of criminal libel less com- 
prehensive, and with moderate penalties reasonably certain 
to be enforced, both individual and newspaper will find suit- 
able protection. 

* " The Newspaper Press," James Grant, vol. 2. p. 15. 



26 

(2) Make Certain Corrections and Retractions Good 

Defences. 

Among the restraints upon newspapers suggested has 
been that of compulsory correction or retraction of misstate- 
ments. The editor is to be compelled to " eat his words," 
figuratively, after the example set by the Russians, who are 
described as compelling a libeller to make a meal, literally, 
of the objectionable publication*. There is, however, a pop- 
ular impression that a correction is insufficient and unsatis- 
factory as a vindication. This idea finds expression in the 
conceit of a lie travelling around the world with the correc- 
tion a day behind, never catching up. It is also thought 
that a compulsory retraction means no more than that the 
editor would rather unsay what he has said than be sued. 
While there may be considerations which prevent even a 
prompt and full withdrawal of a charge or statement from 
being a perfect antidote to the original evil, it should be 
viewed nevertheless, on grounds of public policy, as remov- 
ing all cause of action, unless the libel has been published 
through gross negligence and works special damagef. 
Unintentional mistakes are inevitable as long as papers 
attempt to satisfy the public demand in respect to the 
amount, variety and freshness of what they publish daily. 
The victim of one of these blunders should be satisfied by a 
correction and apology, which will repair his reputation 
more than a dozen suits. [Minnesota has a law, passed in 
1887, which provides that punitive damages shall not be 
recoverable against the publishers of a libel where it ap- 
pears at the trial that the article was published in good faith, 
and that a fair retraction was promptly published, at least 
three days before election in the case of a public candidate.] 

(3) Minor Suggestions. 
[The discouragement of speculative blackmailing suits, 
and suits instituted as a safe and cheap substitute for a 

* " History of Journalism," Frederic Hudson, page 750. 

t The Wisconsin legislature passed a statute to this effect. Perhaps a few other 
state legislatures have taken a similar course. Such statutes have been recently pro- 
posed in Missouri and Illinois. 



27 

denial of the charge, and never intended to be brought to 
trial, is sought in the requirement that the plaintiff give 
ample security for costs in all actions for libel. California 
has such a statute. It is a needed restraint upon the black- 
mailing, shyster lawyers who prey upon well-to-do and 
peace-loving newspapers in the same manner that black- 
mailing editors extort a disreputable livelihood from the 
rest of the community. It has also been recommended as 
a discouragement to speculative libel suits that actual 
damages only be recoverable by a plaintiff, and that puni- 
tive damages be made payable to the state. 

The justice and propriety of distinguishing between actual 
and presumed malice have already been pointed out. The 
National Editorial Association in 1887 recommended the 
passage of a bill by the several States providing that 
" where alleged libellous publications are made, malice shall 
not be presumed unless a retraction or apology is refused 
to be made, or unless circumstances surrounding the publi- 
cation and the refusal to retract or apologize conclusively 
prove malice." Connecticut and some other States have 
statutes which limit recovery to such actual damage as is 
specially alleged and proved unless malice in fact is proved 
or there is failure to retract on request.] 

A select committee of the English house of commons re- 
commended in July, 1880, that reports of public meetings 
should, under certain conditions, be privileged [in 1881 a 
law to this effect was enacted by Parliament, 44 & 45 Vict. 
C. 60] ; and also with a view to discourage prosecutions for 
trivial causes, that no criminal proceedings against news- 
paper men should be allowed until the fiat of the attorney- 
general had been obtained. Space permits only the mere 
mention of these suggestions. 



TO WHAT EXTENT SHOULD THE PRESS BE 
RESTRAINED. 

Public opinion in respect to the latitude which should be 
granted by law to the press has varied greatly. At a time 



28 

when the privilege of printing one's thoughts was obtained, 
in theoiy, only by favor of ecclesiastical or secular rulers, 
who claimed the control of the press as one of their prerog- 
atives, Milton, in his Areopagitica, written against a system 
which is said to have nearly caused the suppression of Par- 
adise Lost, because of a supposed political allusion, argued 
that the liberty of the press consists in printing without any 
previous license, subject to the consequences of law. The 
oppression which caused mere relief from censorship to be 
viewed as freedom was not confined to the old world. 

Harsh Treatment in Early Days. 

The first American newspaper, " Publick Occurrences" 
(1690), was suppressed as unlicensed at a tender age. But 
by Milton's definition the press would be free though the 
slightest libellous publication were punished by the tor- 
ture or execution of the editor. Censorship would be a 
happier fate. The captive rat would doubtless prefer the 
safety of confinement in a cage to liberty with certain ex- 
posure to the teeth of the expectant terrier. Authors might 
well consider themselves less harshly treated, if restricted in 
their right to print to those publications which the censor 
pronounces to be free from danger to the community and 
to themselves, than if told to publish what they please with 
the prospect of losing liberty, or a hand, or the nose, or the 
ears, for an incautious word. There is no freedom unless 
one may print to a certain extent with impunity. The per- 
secution on slight pretexts of early American editors, with 
some of whom imprisonment became a matter of routine, 
taught the new world this truth. Zenger lay in jail nine 
months before his trial and acquittal, and his paper mean- 
while was burned by the common hangman. Severe pun- 
ishments for trivial offences were inflicted by the Republic, 
also, under the alien and sedition laws*. A broader view 
of the liberty of the press was formulated in 1804, when it 
was said by Alexander Hamilton to consist " in the right to 

* Hudson, 160 and 215. 



29 

publish with impunity truth with good motives for justifi- 
able ends." In this second stage of public opinion it came 
to be recognized that precisely the same principle is involved 
in the rights of free thought, free speech and free printing, 
and that similiar privileges and responsibilities should 
attach to the disclosure of one's ideas whatever method of 
communication is adopted. 

Modern Tendencies Toward Liberal Treatment of the 

Press. 

With the growth of the modern newspaper, public opinion 
has shown a tendency to still greater liberality. It is a duty 
imposed upon newspapers by custom and public expectation 
to record the events of each da} r , to comment freely upon 
them in the interests of the community, to expose corrup- 
tion and oppression, to scrutinize and, if necessary, to 
criticise the acts of public servants and the workings of 
public institutions ; to act, in short, as censors as well as re- 
corders. In the honest discharge of these functions it is 
held that newspapers should be defended, by confining the 
import of libellous defamation within narrower limits, or by 
relaxing the rigorous restrictions which hamper the plea of 
truth, or by enlarging the bounds of privileged publications, 
or by extending the borders of non-libellous criticism ; and 
this protection should be given, even though it involves the 
grant of greater latitude to the press in printing than is per- 
mitted to individuals in speaking. The benefit to the com- 
munity arising from the fearless performance of the duties 
of this new public office is thought to outweigh the evil of 
occasional inadvertent injuries to the reputation of citizens. 
In some straggling cases these claims for newspapers seem 
to have been recognized to a certain extent*. But, un- 
doubtedly, the courts, restrained by precedents, have not in 



* See Turnbull v. Ward, 2 F. & F., 508 ; Cockburn's decisions, note * (page 14); Pattison 
v. Singerly, Philadelphia papers, April, 1881. Judge Dobbin's charge in the lower 
court, which was overruled by the Supreme Court of Maryland, in Snyder v. Fulton, 34 
Md., 128, represents the popular opinion which the courts, generally, are restrained by 
precedents from adopting. 



30 

any considerable number adopted the more liberal views, 
whatever advances may have been made in public opinion 
and whatever liberties may have been taken by juries in 
particular cases. A fourth view of newspaper privileges not 
countenanced by the law, but acted upon by some jour- 
nalists,, may be formulated in the words of John Phoenix, 
who held that, as temporary editor of the San Diego Herald, 
he had " the liberty of saying anything he pleased about 
anybody without considering himself at all responsible." 
It seems reasonable to anticipate that there will be, either 
by statute or by successive judicial rulings, a gradual mod- 
ification of antiquated law which fails to protect the in- 
dividual, and which annoys, without restraining, the news- 
papers of the land. But the changes, desired and desirable, 
do not involve the adoption of the Phoenix notion of the 
freedom of the press. 

Too Great a License may be Claimed and Exercised by 

the Press. 

The entire absence of restraint would tend to nullify the 
influence of newspapers both for good and evil. Hallam 
says that " for almost all that keeps up in us permanently 
and effectually the spirit of regard to liberty and the public 
good, we must look to the unshackled and independent en- 
ergies of the press." If this high anticipation be disap- 
pointed, if the press abuse its powers, grossly and univer- 
sally, either to gratify personal malice, or to feed with a 
daily allowance of defamation a depraved public appetite 
which it has itself created, an inglorious end awaits it. In- 
discriminate libel supplies its own antidote. The public be- 
comes hardened, as did the Athenians under the constant 
lashing of the licensed comedy. Men lose all feeling of 
shame, and with no delicate sense of honor become imper- 
vious to insult. They grow indifferent to attacks upon 
themselves and attach no weight to assaults upon others. 
Where all are defamed, reproof loses its salutary effect. 
The press excites little resentment by its criticisms because 



31 

it is despised. It comes to occupy, at best, the position to- 
wards a rich, thick-skinned public of the medieval fool or 
jester, who could say what scandalous and injurious things 
he pleased solely because he was a fool, and the weight of a 
man's words was not attached to his utterances. 

Venality as Affecting Libel Legislation. 
Another danger to be avoided by the press is that of de- 
stroying its influence by a venality inconsistent with the 
theory upon which alone it is entitled to peculiar privileges 
at law. It sells space to advertisers as a business transaction, 
but in its capacity as recorder of and commenter upon the 
news of the day its opinions should not be the subject of 
bargain and sale. Partial exemption from the law of libel, 
as applied to individuals, can be granted it only in propor- 
tion as it maintains its position as a public officer engaged 
by the people, and subject to scorn and contempt if it per- 
mits itself to be led from its duty by a bribe. Its influence, 
too, depends upon the public belief that its opinions are 
given with the interests of the community in view, and not 
the pecuniary advantage of some schemer who has purchased 
its favor. In a recent California case* the court is reported 
to have decided that " it is no more libellous to accuse one 
of selling for gain the support and advocacy of his news- 
paper, than it would be to accuse the merchant of selling 
for gain his merchandise." The newspaper against which 
the charge in this instance was brought estimated the dam- 
age which it suffered from the accusation at $30,000 ; but 
dollars and cents cannot represent the irreparable injury to 
the character and influence of the press which would result 
if this decision should be accepted and acted upon by all 
newspapers, and the public should note the fact. It is an 
insult to the press to class its opinions as merchandise ; and 
the opinion of the California judge will be applauded only 
when both press and public have reached the lowest stage 
of degradation. 



* Fitch v. De Young. [This decision was properly reversed by the Supreme Court 
oi California in 1885. See 66 Cal., 339.] 



32 

Newspapers should so conduct themselves that, in the 
process of framing the libel laws and judicial rulings of the 
future, they may be viewed — not as the universal enemies of 
government, religion, and individual reputation to be per- 
secuted as of old ; not as scurrilous jesters to be left unpun- 
ished because despised ; not as base hirelings to be treated 
only with the consideration shown to mercenary and de- 
liberate libellers — but as advocates solely of the interests of 
the community so far as the expression of opinions is con- 
cerned, deserving to be protected in that public capacity. 



33 



European Hints 



CDNCERNING MATTERS WHEREIN UNCLE SAM DOES 
NOT BEAT THE WORLD. 



BERLIN'S ELEVATED RAILWAY. 



Lessons for Washington — No Grade Crossings — Model Rail- 
road Terminals and Rapid Transit Facilities — Old World 
Railroads Protect Life Better and Build Finer Stations. 



From the Washington Evening Star, January 9, 1892. 

The Washingtonian in Berlin, noting municipal features 
that commend themselves for $ adoption in his own city, is 
struck by the cleanness both of the broad streets and of the 
obscure byways, testifying to the excellence of the street- 
cleaning and garbage systems. He is attracted by the ab- 
sence of overhead wires and towering poles, and by the 
admirable railroad terminal and local rapid transit facili- 
ties. Valuable suggestions in all these matters may be 
derived by developing Washington in its struggle for health- 
ful cleanliness, the burial of disfiguring wires and adequate 
railroad terminals. The lesson taught on the last point I 
found especially novel and instructive. 

Like London and Paris, Berlin has a "ring" railroad, 
circling the city and furnishing both local rapid transit and 
city terminals and a connecting link to the great trunk 
lines. 

THE FINEST ELEVATED ROAD IN THE WORLD. 

It has also, which they have not, a road which follows? 
though with many deviations from a straight line, the diame- 
ter of the suburban ring. This road traverses the very 

3 



34 

heart of the city. At intervals along it are magnificent 
stations, constructed with all the modern improved devices, 
including that of absolute separation of incoming and out- 
going traffic, from which issue trains for St. Petersburg or 
Paris, as well as the local rapid transit trains. This city 
road or " Stadtbahn " connects with the ring-road (" Ring- 
bahn ") at Stralau-Rummelsburgh on the east and West- 
end on the west. It is the most celebrated elevated railway 
in Europe. It is 8.8 miles long, and its four tracks, two for 
distant travel and two for local business, are carried on an 
arched viaduct of masonry, and on iron bridges with mas- 
sive masonry abutments in crossing the streets. It has in 
all sixty-six bridges over streets and water courses. 

Its general elevation is about twenty feet above that of 
the street. It is about fifty feet broad. It is primarily in- 
tended to relieve the street traffic, but five stations, struct- 
ures of impressive size and most admirable arrangement, 
are also used for general traffic. The Friedrichstrasse sta- 
tion has an immense vaulted hall 230 feet wide and 492 
feet long. The main line, with its 8.8 miles, has ten stations. 
The North Ring is 12.56 miles long, with twelve stations. 
The South Ring is 16.30 miles long, with nine stations. 
The local rates of fare are very cheap, the purpose being 
to encourage the building of suburban residences. Local 
trains now run about every three minutes. The speed of 
trains between stations must not exceed twenty-eight miles 
an hour, and the run is made at an average speed of about 
sixteen miles an hour, including the frequent stops, " prob- 
ably as fast," says Mr. Osborne Howes of the Boston rapid 
transit commission, who has recently made an admirable 
report on the subject, " as any similar service in the world." 
In no part of the system, of course, is there a street crossed 
at grade, nor is there any railway track crossed except at a 
different elevation. 

SOME ATTRACTIVE FEATURES OF THE STADTBAHN. 

In examining the Stadtbahn in the vicinity of several 
of the largest stations I was much impressed with the man- 



35 

ner in which the objectionable features of rapid transit lines 
and railroad terminals were minimized or avoided altogether. 
The road was built on private property, except for a short 
distance on the river bed, at a great expense in condemna- 
tion of land. No street is, consequently, occupied and ob- 
structed. Streets are crossed by arch bridges where their 
use is possible ; in other cases the bridges are supported by 
neat iron columns between the sidewalk and the street. 
The structure throughout is solid, and has no disagreeable 
vibration. It is absolutely watertight, and is so constructed 
with rails and rail-carriers bedded in gravel that the passage 
of trains is practically noiseless. There are no droppings from 
above upon the heads of those who pass under it. The 
masonry viaduct presents the appearance of a series of brick 
arches sustaining the road-bed. The space underneath is 
utilized in this part of the city for various purposes, accord- 
ing to location. Here an attractive store or restaurant is 
seen ; here a stable, carriage house or store house. The road 
is built in this thickly-settled section so that it occupies the 
street edge of the blocks, and the buildings constructed 
under it open upon a street on one side or the other. The 
viaduct here looks like a row of occupied brick houses with 
flat roofs and arched fronts, embellished by stone trimmings, 
cornices and recessing of the masonry, and the effect is not 
at all displeasing. Lewis M. Haupt, in an article on rapid 
transit in the December Cosmopolitan, says : " The serious 
objections to rapid surface travel and the unsightly appear- 
ance of the iron superstructures in vogue have led to various 
propositions for the construction of masonry arcades which 
shall eliminate these defects. Among the completed lines of 
this class may be mentioned the grand arcades in Paris and 
Berlin. These, however, are not used exclusively for local 
traffic, but also to connect lines of railways with each other." 
It is only upon certain portions of the Stadtbahn, however, 
that this space under the tracks is thus utilized. Mr. Osborne 
Howes, in the report to which I have referred, says that if 
the road were to be rebuilt arrangements would be made to 



36 

utilize all this space, since it has been found that, when 
open arches have been left that can be utilized for store 
purposes, the space can be rented, particularly near the sta- 
ttons, to exceedingly good advantage. 

A German publication concerning the Stadtbahn, trans- 
lated and reprinted in the Engineering Record, says of these 
arches : " The vaults of the viaduct are rented at a price 
that compares well with the rental of the finest locations in 
Berlin. They are especially desirable for wine cellars and 
restaurants, which are fitted up with the greatest luxury." 

FREIGHT HANDLED ON BERLIN'S ELEVATED ROADS. 

The Berlin terminal system also settles satisfactorily the 
problem of the handling of freight, though additional facil- 
ities in this direction are needed and are now being provided. 
These elevated roads are not merely passenger roads. On 
this point Mr. Howes says : 

" Freight trains are not allowed upon the main line dur- 
ing the day. On the South and North Rings they are per- 
mitted, as in this way alone they reach a number of the 
freight stations. At the present time work is going on 
which, when completed, in four or five years more, will give 
to both North and South Rings a complete double-track 
freight service, entirely distinct from the passenger lines. 

" The main line serves to supply the Central Market of 
Berlin. Cars filled with food supplies, other than live an- 
imals, arriving during the day, are kept on side tracks on 
the Ring lines until midnight, when, with such other pro- 
vision cars as may have arrived during the evening, they 
are brought to the side tracks of the market near the center 
of the city. Here they are immediately unloaded and their 
contents let down on large hydraulic elevators to the main 
floor of the market, which is on a level with the surface of 
the ground. The supplies thus received and delivered 
aggregate from 120 to 160 car-loads each night. The side- 
tracks of the market will not accommodate more than forty 
freight cars at a time, hence when unloaded they are imme- 



37 

diately taken away to make room for others. When a few 
years ago this market method was introduced to take the 
place of the general sale of produce from carts it aroused 
great opposition, which has now, however, wholly died out, 
from the discovery that by the new method the prices of 
food supplies have been sensibly reduced. The market is 
owned and stalls leased by the city, but the management of 
the market traffic, until the produce comes within the walls 
of the market, rests in the hands of the state officials. 

" The same system obtains in the management of the 
Berlin slaughter houses, which are located on the North 
Ring, and at which as many as 49,000 head of animals of 
all kinds have been landed in a day (the average daily sup- 
ply is 30,000). Here, too, the service of delivery is largely 
performed at night, though when the special freight tracks 
are completed this will not be in the least necessary." 

POINTERS FOR THE CAPITAL. 

The Berlin system commends itself to Washington, in 
that it provides noiseless rapid transit and permits passenger 
stations in the heart of the city and ample freight facilities, 
without a single death-trap grade crossing, with no obstruc- 
tion of the streets and no real disfigurement of the surface 
of the city. And Berlin's experience suggests improvements 
upon its system in a somewhat greater height of the struct- 
ure, a more extensive use of the space under the tracks and 
the provision of a distinct set of freight tracks. The same 
end is reached of course by tunneling as in London, where 
terminals and local rapid transit have been secured by bur- 
rowing expensively underground. But travel on the London 
Metropolitan and District roads is a suffocating experience to 
an American. Washington could tunnel to better advan- 
tage than London, where a considerable portion of the line 
is built in land reclaimed from the Thames, and the tracks 
are, at certain stages of the tide, below the water level of 
the river, compelling the operation of five pumping stations 
to establish thorough drainage. But where circumstances 



38 

do not forbid the elevated structure the route in the air and 
light will be approved by most Americans. The New York 
elevated roads — tracks elevated on stilts, obstructing streets, 
disfiguring the city and serving only for local rapid transit 
— are not the alternative from the London tunnels or the 
choice would be extremely difficult. The New York rapid 
transit commission have, to be sure, selected a tunnel plan 
for the greater part of that city, but they preferred, as they 
explicitly state in their report, the above-ground system, 
and decided against it in part only when, in the light of 
conditions which do not yet exist in Washington, they found 
the elevated structure impracticable in the down-town sec- 
tion of New York, with its heavy population, costly improve- 
ments and tremendous land values. Where the conditions 
permit them in other parts of the city, as, for instance, in 
the two miles east of Madison avenue, they propose to use a 
masonry viaduct resembling Berlin's Stadtbahn. 

WHAT L'ENPANT WOULD HAVE DONE. 

If the founders of Washington, who with prophetic fore- 
sight, planned and marked out in the last century the frame- 
work of the magnificent capital of the next century could 
now, in the light of the requirements of modern cities, 
repeat their task, they would provide ample space in the 
city's plan for a great central railroad station, and would set 
aside rights of way for lines radiating to the principal points 
of the compass from this station. These lines, which would 
be both long-distance railroad terminals and local rapid 
transit roads, building up the suburbs and relieving city 
congestion, would in their course through the city run, I 
think, over masonry viaducts of the Berlin plan, with all 
the space under the tracks except at the bridges over streets 
utilized and ornamented, and with distinct tracks for long- 
distance travel, short-distance travel and freight service. 
The station, though in the heart of the city, w T ould have 
nothing in its approaches to threaten life and limb, to re- 
duce the value of property or to obstruct street traffic and 



39 

travel. It would be like the Cannon street and other great 
stations in London, the impressive railroad structures of 
Paris, the Friedrich Strasse and Alexander Platz stations 
on the Stadtbahn in Berlin, or the wonderful structure at 
Frankfort-on-the-Main. In contemplating these buildings 
the Washingtonian feels profoundly ashamed when he 
thinks of the local stations at home. The foreign cities 
teach us a lesson both as to the avoidance of grade crossings 
and as to the construction and arrangement of stations. 

WHEREIN WE DO NOT BEAT THE WORLD. 

The American in Europe, while finding less complete 
provision for comfort in long-distance railroad travel than 
in America, frequently inadequate toilet facilities, less ex- 
pensive upholstery and less display of hard woods and glass 
in the cars and a system of compartments arrangement 
which insures privacy at the expense of an unsociable con- 
finement often irksome, also notes the most elaborate and 
painstaking precautions for the safety both of the traveller 
and of the people of the country traversed by the road and 
an astonishing superiority in the appearance and arrange- 
ment of the stations. Our roads devote too much attention 
to fine rolling stock, too little to road-bed and devices for 
the safety of passengers and hardly any except what the law 
compels to the safety of the non-travelling public. Mr. 
Samuel Rea, an engineer connected with the Pennsylvania 
railroad, in a w T ork on " The railways terminating in Lon- 
don," printed by the Engineering News, in noting the points 
of European superiority, says : " Railways and highways 
are not allowed to cross on the same level in cities, nor else- 
where if much travelled. Some of these excellent features 
are gradually being adopted by our more advanced com- 
panies, notably the block signal system and the avoidance 
of grade crossings in the cities and important towns of our 
states. In the matter of city terminal stations, which are a 
conspicuous part of every railway, English roads are unsur- 
passed and far in advance of our railroads." 



40 



HINTS FOR UNCLE SAMS RAILWAYS. 

In looking down for the first time from St. Paul's one 
foggy morning upon the notable buildings of London, the 
structures which first caught my eye and about which I 
first inquired turned out to be some of London's immense 
railroad stations, lofty buildings of pleasing and imposing 
architecture, containing huge modern hotels of the first- 
class. 

The Cannon street, Charing Cross and St. Pancras stations 
may be specially mentioned. They are referred to by Sam- 
uel Rea as fit types of modern city terminal stations. The 
first mentioned station stands back from Cannon street 
some ninety feet, leaving a broad area in front of the build- 
ing for an entrance to the underground railway station, a 
cab stand and a sitting-down platform. This forecourt is 
partially inclosed with a heavy balustrade, and a fine ap- 
proach at the west side leads up to the hotel and station. 
The depth through the ticket offices is about ninety feet 
and the train hall is over 650 feet in length. The Charing 
Cross station much resembles it. St. Pancras is a huge 
structure, with an imposing facade, flanked at the eastern 
corner with a high clock tower. The head house — a large 
and imposing building — is connected with the railroad's 
hotel. The station hall has roof trusses of 243 feet span 
and is 690 feet in length. Some of the stations in Paris 
are equally impressive. In Berlin and other German cities 
extensive improvements have been made and large sums of 
money recently expended by the railroad management to 
bring the city terminal stations up to an ideal standard. 

The station at Frankfort-on-the-Main now claims to be 
the finest in the world. The Engineering Record pronounces 
the station " a model structure of its kind combining enor- 
mous size with a thoroughly well worked out plan to meet 
the demands of great traffic." The station hall proper, not 
including the passenger waiting rooms, is about 551 feet 
wide and 600 feet long. Its total cost was about $8,250,000. 



41 

APPLICATION OF EUROPEAN HINTS TO WASHINGTON. 

The idea of a central union station in Washington, 
approached by masonry viaduct or tunnel lines from the 
different points of the compass, cannot now perhaps be real- 
ized. The two roads intrenched here have agreed that they 
do not want a union station, and apparently Congress will 
not force them into unwilling partnership. Assuming that 
they are to be treated independently there is still the need 
and opportunity of applying European teachings to the 
improvement of terminal facilities, both for the passenger 
and freight service, the betterment of stations and the re- 
moval of grade crossings. 

The present terminal conditions are injurious and dis- 
graceful to the capital of the American Republic. The sta- 
tions compared with similar structures in Europe are inad- 
equate in size, awkwardly arranged and ugly. However 
liberal and progressive the roads serving Washington may 
be in other localities, here they have been short-sighted and 
stingy. For freight purposes instead of purchasing ample 
ground when they could secure it cheaply they have 
preferred to do this business still less expensively, though 
illegally, on the public streets and reservations, and now 
they are pitifully cramped. The rush of delayed freight 
business after a Knights Templar conclave causes a block- 
ade that paralyzes the business community. A like block- 
ade is threatened this winter in handling the naturally 
growing business without any occurrence like the conclave 
to furnish an excuse. Unless a radical change in conditions 
is effected it is difficult to calculate when Washington will 
recover from the blockade that must follow the Grand Army 
encampment next September. The situation in regard to 
grade crossings is equally discreditable. Both roads sustain 
a series of death traps at which losses of life and injuries to 
limb periodically occur, and each one of these crossings is a 
direct business injury and inconvenience and cause of finan- 
cial loss to the city through the obstruction to traffic and 



42 

travel which occurs at them. At a single one of the Penn- 
sylvania railroad's crossings last year the delay incident to 
tie lowering and raising of the gates was experienced by 
the public 116 times within the daylight hours of a single 
day, and nearly 8,000 pedestrians and considerably over 
2,000 vehicles, passed and were exposed to the chance of 
danger and these delays. Though the use of this part of 
the road for shifting cars or making up trains is illegal, 
shifting engines engaged in this illegal work obstructed this 
crossing fifty-one times on the same day. The Baltimore 
and Ohio surface tracks isolate East Washington and throttle 
its prosperity. The Pennsylvania railroad tracks perform a 
similar service for south Washington and the river front. 

WHAT ONE ROAD WILL DO. 

The Baltimore and Ohio has shown recent indications of 
an appreciation of the discreditable condition of its termi- 
nals, and of a disposition to make them better. 

It is understood that this road proposes to spend soon a 
large sum of money in terminal improvements if Congress 
will approve its plans. It proposed to the last Congress to 
unite its two lines outside of the city and to bring them 
down Delaware avenue to its present station site, which it 
proposed to enlarge so as to form within it a track loop. If 
this were permitted it promised to build a handsome station 
and to erect bridges on North Capitol street, Massachusetts 
avenue, H street and Boundary. The Star commented 
upon this plan at the time and criticised some features of it, 
suggesting a different station site and the removal of other 
grade crossings in the city. Whether the new station and 
loop are constructed as citizens desire north of Massachu- 
setts avenue and east of North Capitol street, or as the rail- 
road desires, on the present site, the approaches through the 
city should not be on grade, and the masonry viaduct plan 
suggests itself. In Berlin the railroad paid many millions 
for private property upon which to construct its overhead 
road. The roads here should pay for their right of way. 



43 

But since it is obviously impossible to expect that Con- 
gress would put our roads to this expense, and since they 
now take full possession of the streets which they occupy, it 
may be justifiable to permit them to erect their masonry 
viaducts on these streets, the property of the United States, 
and even to partly reimburse themselves for the expense of 
the improvement by renting the arcade space beneath their 
tracks for stores and other purposes. A Berlin viaduct 
clown Delaware avenue would not obstruct in the least tran- 
sit between West and East Washington, would constitute 
no increased disfigurement, would be really a business 
improvement in the increase of trading facilities, and, util- 
izing no more than half of this broad avenue, could be 
made so wide as to accommodate ample long-distance, short- 
distance and freight tracks, improving in some respects 
upon the Berlin suggestion. The disposition of the road to 
buy ground to enlarge its freight facilities ought to be en- 
couraged in every conceivable manner. The acquisition of 
freight facilities along the Potomac in Georgetown reduces 
somewhat the need of extensive freight accommodations 
about its main passenger station near the Capitol, and 
renders comparatively easy the plan of elevated approaches 
to this station. 

WHAT ANOTHER ROAD MAY DO. 

The Pennsylvania railroad intimated when it secured 
from the last Congress certain privileges that it would make 
this year notable improvements in its terminals. Senator 
McMillan referred to these half-promises. He said to a Star 
reporter that he would go ahead at this session with a meas- 
ure for relief from grade crossings from 6th street to the 
Long Bridge and improvement of the 6th street conditions. 
" I will prepare a bill," he said, " which will have for its 
object the amelioration of existing conditions, and I know 
that the railroad company will do everything in its power 
to aid me in making the bill a law." 

Senator McMillan, as chairmain of the District commit- 



44 

tee, may be depended upon to make good his own promises 
and to promptly undertake the task of causing the road to 
fulfil its obligations. Maryland and Virginia avenues are 
broad and, if the railroad continues to insist that the tunnel 
plan west of 6th street is impracticable notwithstanding the 
evidence of Engineer Commissioners Twining and Ludlow 
and Engineer Douglass of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, 
it might be required or persuaded to elevate its tracks upon 
a viaduct of the Berlin type. This treatment of the tracks 
would bring them to the north end of the present Long 
Bridge in proper relation to the masonry viaduct approaches 
across the reclaimed flats, proposed by Col. Hains, and to 
the new elevated long bridge which is to be. Indeed, an 
important part of the Pennsylvania's terminal improvement 
must be the destruction of that great dam, stretching a 
causeway and a low structure supported by numerous ob- 
structing piers across the Potomac ; a decaying, dangerous 
nuisance as a bridge, and a dam blocking the commercial 
prosperity of Georgetown and threatening every spring to 
turn a destructive flood in upon Pennsylvania avenue and 
lower Washington. 

If Congress insists upon retaining the 6th street station 
and the disfigurement of the mall, the tracks might be 
removed from 6th street, opening that thoroughfare, and 
run, as proposed, on the edge of the mall next to the street, 
but on an embankment viaduct like the Berlin road in the 
suburbs, sodded and ornamented in every tasteful way with 
arched openings at intervals to permit passage under it. It 
is a pity that Representative Springer's Champs Elysees, 
running through the series of parks between the Capitol 
and the White House or Monument, should be brought into 
proximity to railroad tracks at any point or in any way, 
but this avenue, or the more graceful and suitable curving 
driveway into which it might be modified, would clearly be 
more attractive if it retained its level grade and passed 
through an ornamented arch under a comparatively noise- 



45 

less viaduct instead of climbing over the tracks and engines 
by a bridge. 

The purchase of ample freight yards, especially in the 
section near where the railroad issues from the Navy Yard 
tunnel and south of its main line, into which it can run 
surface tracks, ought to be encouraged and promoted. The 
streets and reservations have served long enough as shifting 
stations and freight yards. 

When the Baltimore and Ohio gets the imposing and 
admirably arranged station for which it is planning, with 
ample room acquired by purchase for the performance of 
the functions of a great modern railroad, the Pennsylvania 
will doubtless be stirred by pride and competitive self-interest 
as well as by the absolute necessities of its steadily growing 
traffic to enlarge and improve its terminal facilities, includ- 
ing its station. 

This main Washington station of a great railroad sys- 
tem, at which some 2,000,000 of people arrive and depart 
every year, cannot be anything but inadequate and antiqua- 
ted as long as it can be legally approached on 6th street by 
only two tracks, " to be put as near together in the middle 
of the street as possible " and showing " flat rails like those 
used by street railways so as to facilitate wagon and carriage 
travel over the same." Whatever the railroad has on 6th 
street more than these two sets of flat rails, easily crossed 
by carriages, is illegal. These assurances of a minimum of 
inconvenience to the public are made in the letter of the 
law and are consequently more binding than the suggestion 
of Senator Simon Cameron that the 6th street tracks would 
be withdrawn when the mall came to be needed as a park, 
and Senator Frelinghuysen's assurance that no engine would 
ever run across the mall to frighten horses as apprehended 
by a brother Senator. Mr. Frelinghuysen's suggestion was 
that the trains would run along 6th street and into the sta- 
tion engineless from a momentum acquired on Virginia 
avenue, but he expressed no opinion as to the manner in 
which the train was to get out of the station and back to 



46 

Virginia avenue again. The theories and arrangements all 
pointed to a temporary makeshift, with a small business in 
view, and all the conditions are unsuited for the leading 
passenger station of the capital of the republic in the year 
1892. The Pennsylvania road, in order to keep up with 
the times and with local business competition, must, where- 
ever its main station is located, get more ground in connec- 
tion with it. It must avoid the necessity of backing out of 
its station. It must secure the privilege of laying all the 
tracks that a first-class road in a first-class city requires for 
its business. And in return for the legislative concessions 
which will enable it to do these things, and in remembrance 
of the gift to it of free right-of-way, free station site, and the 
practically free use of Long Bridge, it ought to take its tracks, 
except specially designated freight tracks in certain localities, 
from grade everywhere within the city limits. 

COSTLY CHANGES IN OTHER CITIES. 

The Pennsylvania railroad has recently been making 
notable improvements in its Jersey City terminals. It has 
elevated its passenger tracks to do away with grade-crossings. 
It has constructed an immense train-shed 652 feet long and 
256 wide, with an arched roof of the greatest single-span 
ever built. The cost of its improvements, including new 
ferry boat, new bridges, all of its new plant in Jersey City 
and New York, is estimated at $4,000,000. 

This road, both in theory and in practice, has been liberal 
and progressive outside of Washington. 

In other cities its policy is to abolish grade crossings. 
In a formal letter favoring the grade-crossings bill for Penn- 
sylvania, President Roberts said : " In pursuance of this 
policy it (the Pa. R. R.) has succeeded in eliminating all 
such crossings from its main line in the city of Philadel- 
phia and for a distance of nine miles beyond. It is certainly 
within your recollection that in order to reach the present 
station at Broad street by an elevated road it expended be- 
tween four and five millions of dollars and thus secured the 
removal of all the freight tracks from Market street and the 



47 

abandonment of the then existing grade crossings between 
15th street and the Schuylkill river. The same policy has 
been pursued by the company for many years past on its 
main line in the city of Pittsburg, with the result that all 
grade crossings of important streets within its limits are 
now avoided. This policy is being steadily pursued on our 
lines to New York and Washington also. * * * * It 
has not even been pretended that the wholesome provisions 
of law that require the avoidance of grade crossings by 
steam railroads in such cities as London, Liverpool and Ber- 
lin have in any manner interfered with their commercial pros- 
perity, although it is certainly true that they have compelled 
railroad companies seeking admission to those cities to ex- 
pend a larger amount of money than they would have done 
had grade crossings been permitted. But I think that you 
will agree with me that the public safety is the supreme 
law in this case, and that if railroads can reach our large 
cities without sacrificing the lives and limbs of our people 
it is their duty to do so." 

NOW FOR WASHINGTON. 

It is time for the application of these principles and 
this practice, by all the roads centering here, to the capital 
of the nation. It is time that Congress, the legislature of 
this capital, secured from our railroads the same considera- 
tion in these matters that the municipal councils in other 
cities demand and obtain. It cannot continue always to be 
the case that Congress, to whose guardianship the interests 
of this city are entrusted, will give to our common carriers 
for the asking whatever they desire, or promptly condone 
the offence if they have taken without asking, and at the 
same time turn a deaf ear to the requests of the people for 
the better protection of life and for the removal of impedi- 
ments to city expansion and development and to business 
prosperity. 

When the local roads have built here European stations, 
covering large areas of ground, lofty, imposing and orna- 
mental structures, with fine modern hotels in the upper 



48 

stories, as in London, there might well be constructed in 
connection with one of them the great convention hall which 
Washington needs. Such a hall would bring increased 
business especially to the road which would convey outsiders 
directly to first-class hotel accommodations in the same build- 
ing with it. The railroad as hall owner would put money 
into the pockets of the railroad as hotel proprietor, carrier 
of passengers and promoter of excursions, and vice versa. 

When both roads have abolished their local grade cross- 
ings and run rapid, noiseless trains over a Berlin viaduct 
in their course through the city, and when both cross the 
Potomac to southern connections on handsome and substan- 
tial bridges, not dams, then Washington will enjoy the same 
unobjectionable rapid transit facilities for its suburbs that 
have brought such prosperity and relief from congestion to 
Berlin. Not only the northeastern and northwestern Dis- 
trict, but the Virginia suburbs of Washington, will be con- 
nected with the growing and progressive capital by bands 
of steel. With the Berlin rapid transit facilities these sub- 
urbs, whether in the District, Maryland or Virginia, will 
feel the impulse of Washington's expansion, will flourish 
as they have never flourished before and will, in their turn, 
heap blessings and benefits upon the city to which they 
bring convenient and healthful homes for the moderately 
well-to-do, summer breathing places for the rich and a 
remedy for urban overcrowding with its ugly and threaten- 
ing accompaniments. The railroads as well as the public 
will profit by this improvement of their service and broad- 
ening of their functions. Washington will clasp to itself 
and absorb its surburban extensions in every direction. 
The city limits will soon be identical with the boundaries 
of the District, whether the original dimensions of the ten 
miles square are restored or the District lines remain as at 
present, and the capital will stride with quickened steps 
toward its goal of a million population with all the progress 
and development and increased attractiveness that must 
accompany its growth in numbers. 



49 



Rapid Transit. 



EUROPEAN HINTS CONCERNING PRACTICABILITY OF 
IMPROVED MOTORS. 



PESTH'S ELECTRIC CONDUIT. 



Lessons for America — The Overworked Trolley Neither Es- 
sential Nor Desirable for Rapid Transit in Large Cities — 
Washington as a Model Street Railway City. 



From the Washington Evening Star, October 22, 1892. 

Our national boast is that nothing is impossible to Ameri- 
can inventiveness, that what other peoples have failed or 
neglected to achieve we accomplish speedily and thoroughly. 
A notable exception to this national self-confidence is found 
apparently in the great electric companies and many street 
railway magnates, who declare with one accord in a concert 
of self-depreciation that no form of electric railway motor 
but the trolley can be made commercially practicable in 
America, and that the only substitute for the antiquated ear 
horse that American ingenuity can devise, even for our large 
cities, is this aggravation of the overhead pole and wire evil. 
Are we amusing ourselves with a baseless national conceit 
when we plume ourselves on our superior inventiveness? 
Or, are those who announce the national incapacity to de- 
vise and work an improved and unobjectionable motor, 
amusing themselves with motives of self-interest at the ex- 
pense of the public ? These questions arose again and again 
in my mind this summer as I rode in succession over a 
compressed air railway in Paris, a storage battery railway at 
The Hague, Holland, and an underground conduit electric 
railway in Buda-Pesth, Austria-Hungary. 

4 



50 



A HINT FROM PARIS. 



The compressed air line at Paris — the city which has 
served as a model for Washington in so many respects — 
runs through the park of Vincennes to Nogent and Ville 
Evrard. It is in general a suburban line, but traverses also 
some narrow and well-traveled streets. It is capable of a 
high rate of speed and the machine seems to be under ab- 
solute control. It is practically noiseless, except that a 
slight grinding sound is produced as the car wheels pass 
curves in the road. I know nothing of the profits or losses 
of this particular line, though it seems to be reasonably 
popular and well patronized, but a similar railway at Nan- 
tes, France, has been operated for ten years and makes re- 
ports of its expenses and earnings, which, if reliable, show 
that the pneumatic is cheaper and more profitable even than 
the trolley system. The Compagnie Generale des Omnibus 
of Paris have, it is said, determined to use compressed air as 
a motive power upon suburban lines between Paris, St. Cloud, 
Sevres, and Versailles. The same kind of motor is reported 
to be used upon a railway in Berne, Switzerland. In the 
French compressed air system each car is supplied with its 
own motor and there is no conduit like that which charac- 
terized the compressed air system that proved a failure on 
the 7th street road or Brightwood avenue in the suburbs of 

this city. 

the Hague's suggestion. 

The storage battery line at the capital of Holland runs 
from the heart of the city to Scheveningen, the fashionable 
and famous seaside summer resort. It is popular and suc- 
cessful during the season against the competition of steam 
and against the rivalry of a horse railway that follows a cool 
and shady course through a most beautiful park, while the 
electric road runs for part of its route through an almost 
naked plain. The cars are large and heavy, rapid in move- 
ment and attractive to the eye. The Hague is not unworthy 
to furnish a suggestion to Washington, between which and 



51 

it a strong resemblance is noted, in that The Hague, for cen- 
turies the political eapital of the States General, was until 
the time of Louis Philippe denied the right to vote in the 
assembly of states ; in that, it is and always has been the 
favorite residence of the ruling and wealthy class ; in that 
its prosperity is due to its political character and its resi- 
dence attractions and not to internal resources of the town 
itself, and in that it surpasses all other Dutch towns in broad 
and handsome streets and spacious parking. The example 
set by the capital of Holland is to be followed on an exten- 
sive scale, the newspapers announce, by the capital of Ger- 
many and the capital of France, the united street car lines 
of Berlin and the Compagnie Generale des Omnibus of Paris 
having decided to take this step. Storage battery cars are 
already used to a slight extent in Paris and London. It 
seems never to occur to these benighted foreigners that in 
order to keep pace with modern civilization they must de- 
face and endanger their streets with the trolley. 

THE EXAMPLE SET BY BUDA-PESTH. 

In Buda-Pesth, the enterprising and progressive capital of 
Hungary, I rode all over the city in the neat and attractive 
cars that are propelled smoothly, rapidly and at an easily 
regulated speed by electricity as the motive power. The 
Buda-Pesth railway is an underground conduit road with an 
open slotted conduit of concrete, having iron yokes spaced 
about four feet apart, resembling somewhat the conduit con- 
struction of a cable road. The slot, however, is in a split 
rail, the conduit lying immediately under one of the run- 
ning rails, and the feed and return current pass through a 
pair of conductors attached to either side of the* iron yokes. 
Hie current is supplied at a constant potential of 300 volts, 
something over one-half as powerful as the trolley current. 
The rails do not serve as conductors. The conductors arc 
light angle irons attached to cup-shaped insulators and 
placed about two-thirds of the depth of the conduit from the 
bottom in order to keep them from moisture, and the con- 



52 

duit, which is 27.5 inches dee}), is furnished with catch pits 
to carry off the drainage. The conductors are also entirely 
protected under the running rails, so that they cannot catch 
rain or dirt and may not be seen or touched from the slot. 

CURRENT LEAKAGE IN RAINY, SNOWY WEATHER 

is one of the bugaboos employed to frighten the public from 
the use of the underground electric conduit. The experience 
of Buda-Pesth, where the atmospheric conditions are more 
trying than in Washington, and where the streets are no 
cleaner and no better drained, shows that practically this 
leakage is not a serious affair, if simple devices are adopted 
for reducing it to a minimum. Osborne Howes reported to 
the Boston rapid transit commission concerning this point 
that the electric cars of Buda-Pesth experienced no more 
trouble with snow and ice in the winter of '90-91 than the 
ordinary horse cars. " There was some delay," he says, 
" but nothing serious, although last winter was one of ex- 
ceptional severity in Hungary, and the Danube river was 
frozen over continuously for more than three months." The 
nominal rate of speed is eight miles per hour. At night and 
in some parts of the route eleven miles per hour are per- 
mitted. In densely crowded streets 6.2 miles are the limit, 
while on crossings only 3.72 miles per hour are allowed. 
There are four of these electric lines in the city, the oldest 
of which has been in operation for more than three years, 
with a total length of track of twelve miles, and the larger 
part of the lines have double tracks. These lines are known 
as the Station Street line, opened July 30, 1889 ; the Pod- 
maniczky Street line, opened September 10, 1889 ; the 
Grosse-Ringstrasse line, opened March 6, 1890, and the King 
Street line, opened last year. Other extensions of the 
system are proposed. The Podmaniczky Street line runs 
from the academy in the heart of Pesth to the principal 
railroad station and the extensive public park of the city, 
the Stadtwaldchen. The Grosse-Ringstrasse line traverses 
the finest of the great boulevards that Buda-Pesth has of late 



53 

years been constructing. It is a broad street, lined for a 
considerable part of its length with imposing buildings. 
The King Street line parallels Andrassy street, the show 
street of the city, to Buda-Pesth what the Ringstrasse is to 
Vienna, Unter den Linden to Berlin and the boulevards to 
Paris. During 1891 the number of persons carried on the 
electric line was nearly double that of 1890 and the receipts 
were increased proportionately. The reports of the Buda- 
Pesth horse railroad, the competitor of the electric road, for 
the same period show for 1891 a slight decrease in the num- 
ber of passengers carried from the figures of 1890, and the 
income per mile has also fallen. The horse railway carried 
less than half as many passengers and received only 62 per 
cent, as great an income per mile a month. It is pointed 
out in the Engineering Neivs that the Buda-Pesth electric 
road is remarkably successful among Austrian railways as 
regards passengers carried and gross income per mile, for 
even on the almost constant^ crowded lines of the Vienna, 
horse railway the number of passengers per mile and the 
income are only about three-fifths as great. The rapid ex- 
tension of the system as well as the well-filled cars and the 
excellent showing of earnings demonstrate 

THE POPULARITY AND SUCCESS OP THE ROAD. 

Various improvements that can easily be made have 
suggested themselves as desirable in perfecting the system 
for American use. The cost of construction can be 
cheapened, the slot can be made narrower, the contact frame 
stronger and the pattern of the rails can be improved. But 
the fact remains that in spite of minor and easily remedied 
defects this system has proved commercially practicable and 
a remarkable success upon the leading railway of a city of 
half a million people, the most enterprising, progressive and 
rapidly developing capital to-day in all Europe. 

These three European railways to which reference has 
been made demonstrate that the trolley is not essential to 
practical rapid transit either in suburban or special season 



54 

service or in the constant and vast labor of transporting the 
multitude quickly over the principal streets of a great city. 

The Buda-Pesth road is most interesting to a Washing- 
tonian because the conditions more closely resemble those 
that confront this city, There are some 

STRIKING POINTS OF SIMILARITY 

between the Hungarian and American capitals. As Wash- 
ington has acquired its main development and adornment 
since the war of 1861-65, and owes its prosperity largely to 
circumstances and sentiments, created or quickened by the 
war, so Buda-Pesth has grown into greatness since the war 
of 1866 between Germany and Austria, and its development 
is based upon conditions which arose from this struggle. A 
special impetus was given to the growth of both capitals 
about 1873, the formal consolidation of Buda and Pesth be- 
ing the motive power in one case and the reign of A. R. 
Shepherd in the other. Both of these beautiful cities are the 
embodiment and material manifestation of national senti- 
ment and national pride. The tardy but now vigorous co- 
operation of the Union with the capital's residents in bring- 
ing to perfection the Union's city is a part of current history. 
So in Buda-Pesth : " The ministry and the municipal 
authorities co-operated and building operations were in- 
trusted to a mixed commission of the national and city gov- 
ernments." Buda-Pesth, pushed forward by the national 
pride of 17,000,000 of progressive and ambitious people, has 
with its half million of population become the Minneapolis 
of Europe as a milling center, the Chicago of Europe in 
wonderful push and rapidity of growth, and a new Paris in 
beauty. Washington's development is not less remarkable, 
and as it has behind it the national sentiment and national 
pride of 65,000,000 Americans, causing it to show forth in 
miniature the great republic, its aspirations are not limited 
by the mark of Buda-Pesth's present or future achievements, 
or by those recorded of any of the world's capitals. 



55 



OTHER HINTS FROM HUNGARY S CAPITAL. 

Buda-Pesth has a famous promenade along the Danube, 
suggesting to Washington what it may enjoy when the flats 
are fully converted into a park, and a sea-wall along the 
Potomac has been constructed. 

Andrassy street, the pride of the Hungarian capital, is a 
straight street like our avenues and like Unter den Linden 
in Berlin ; but Buda-Pesth has also broad, curving, ring 
streets in course of development like the Parisian boulevards 
and the magnificent Viennese Ringstrasse, which we lack. 
Some day, however, Washington will have a "Ringstrasse" 
or boulevard traversing the series of parks between the 
Capitol and Monument and the new-made park on the 
Potomac, following the line of Pock creek through Pock 
Creek Park and crossing to and traversing Soldiers' Home. 
This boulevard in interest and attractiveness of surroundings 
will compare favorably with any in the world, and will be 
worthy of the American capital. 

Buda-Pesth maintains free public baths in the Danube, a 
pointed reminder to Washington. 

Albert Shaw says, in the Century, of the Buda-Pesth street 
railways : "At the expiration of the existing charters the 
street railway lines and their equipment will become the 
property of the city, without indemnity to the private 
owners." On the other side of the water the public takes 
a lively interest in franchises which involve the privilege of 
occupying and using public streets, a grip is retained in the 
public interest upon all such franchises, stringent conditions 
are imposed for the protection of the people against danger 
and against imposition, and the primary object in granting 
these franchises is the convenient and rapid transportation 
of the public, with only reasonable profits to the semi-public 
servants who undertake this task. On this side of the water, 
too often the corporation which deigns to transport the pub- 
lic treats the streets of which gratuitous use has been granted 
it as its own exclusive private property. Paving nothing 



56 

for the use of these streets, it often appears in court as evad- 
ing taxation upon property that it owns, and entirely un- 
controlled by the public wishes or welfare as to motive 
power and equipment it makes its own enrichment the 
primary object, and pronounces " commercially impractic- 
able " any improvement merely for the benefit of the public, 
which temporarily or permanently may reduce its dividends. 

SQUEEZING THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR. 

Cheapness is the great virtue of the trolley and in the eyes 
of the street railways that virtue is capable of covering a 
multitude of sins. The trolley's superior cheapness causes 
the cry of " commercially impracticable " in respect to 
superior motors that are found reasonably profitable in 
Europe and that have proved successful in this country, too, 
so far as tested, until the great electric companies, which are 
pushing the trolley have absorbed the inventors who have 
been developing better motors and have obtained control of 
the railways upon which their experiments have been con- 
ducted, after which event the other motors than the trolley 
have been quickly demonstrated to be failures. In the 
light of European examples the words " commercially im- 
practicable," when applied to pneumatic, storage battery and 
underground conduit electric systems, mean not that they 
are unprofitable, but merely that at first at least they will 
not enable stockholders to get rich quite so fast as the trolley. 

A USEFUL BUT NOT A UNIVERSAL MOTOR. 

I do not mean to unjustly depreciate the trolley system. 
Through its use as a cheap motor many suburban and 
sparsely settled regions and ambitious villages have been 
built up which could not under the conditions that existed 
have secured rapid transit in any other way. There is 
something wonderful and inspiring in the impetus to rapid 
transit given all over the country by the campaign in be- 
half of the trolley within the last four or five years. Small, 
growing towns, especially in the west, have employed the 



57 

overhead electric system as a new means both of develop- 
ment and advertisement, and even the large cities, for use in 
whose streets it is unsuited, have been awakened by the 
persistent knocking of the trolley advocates at the municipal 
doors to the necessity of finding some substitute for the car 
horse and of adopting the best means of securing rapid 
transit, whatever that should turn out to be. But the 
avaricious action of the electric and some street railway cor- 
porations in attempting to extend the trolley's application and 
use far beyond its natural sphere, and in cramming it willy 
nilly down the throats of some of our large cities, assuring 
the struggling victims that it is pretty, harmless and pleas- 
ant to the urban taste, has developed a popular antipathy to 
it which sometimes prevents proper appreciation of its real 
merits in its appropriate field of operation. 

The combination behind the trolley is very strong ; since 
the amalgamation of the Edison and Thompson-Houston 
companies its power is tremendous. Among the Atlantic 
coast cities Boston has fallen a victim ; Philadelphia is strug- 
gling in the combination's clutches, nearly overpowered, 
Baltimore has been partly captured, and New York has been 
recently threatened. At one time last session the House of 
Representatives even authorized the introduction of the 
trolley into the heart of Washington, whose smooth streets and 
partly successful crusade against existing overhead wires 
caused it to deserve more considerate and wiser treatment. 
Washington was saved only by an intelligent public opinion 
and the firmness of the Senate. 

THE STRONG FIGHT IN BEHALF OF THE TROLLEY. 

The controversial warfare in behalf of the trolley is waged 
with much skill and ingenuity, and also at considerable ex- 
pense, since the newspapers charge high advertising rates 
for the publication of such matter as trolley affidavits in the 
local columns. The trolley argument assumes that the over- 
head system and rapid transit are identical, that the choice 
of motive power is between the ancient mule and the trolley, 



58 

and congratulates those who accept the latter as enterpris- 
ing and progressive, and denounces those who do not as old 
fogies. It of course ignores the fact that the trolley is a mere 
makeshift and temporary device, the crude beginning of 
practical electric motors, still valuable in sparsely settled 
localities which can afford nothing better, but as much out 
of place in our large cities at this day as the first locomotive 
would be on any of our great trunk lines. Rapid transit in 
general is an indication of progressiveness. But circum- 
stances and conditions determine whether rapid transit by 
trolley is progressiveness or old fogyism. In the cross- 
roads village it is the former ; in the metropolis it is the 
latter. The next step of the trolley argument is to pro- 
nounce the trolley current harmless, and to submit a volume 
of affidavits from employes who find amusing, profitable and 
healthful recreation in permitting the current to play 
through their frames, and in swearing to the fact. Those 
who have the misfortune to be killed by the current, like 
the man struck by the West End road's lightning in Boston 
last winter, and the lineman in Port Huron, Mich., this 
summer, say never a word. It is probably possible to hab- 
ituate the human frame to electric shocks, so that the force 
of a current can be endured which would almost certainly 
kill a novice undergoing his first shock. The fact that one 
can accustom himself to the use of poison by taking grad- 
ually increasing doses and in time swallow with impunity a 
quantity that would in the beginning have certainly killed 
him, does not justify the scattering of arsenic or strychnine 
in such fashion as to expose the public indiscriminately to 
its effects. There is no more justification in exposing the 
public to be struck by lightning because some men have 
been shocked and still live. 

HOW MANY VOLTS WILL KILL. 

It is impossible for anybody to say what is the danger 
point in the electric current, Sir Wm. Thompson, Dr. C. 
W. Siemens and other eminent electricians reached the con- 



59 

elusion in a parliamentary investigation in England that a 
current of 300 volts is the limit of safety. The trolley cur- 
rent is 500 volts. For a considerable time this current, 
while it killed horses, could not be convicted of destroying 
human life, and some individuals certainly received its full 
shock with no further injury than a blistering and a general 
shaking up. In view of these facts many who were anxious 
only to learn the truth were disposed to believe that the 
safety limit set by the British electricians might be reason- 
ably increased. But within the last year there have been 
at least two deaths from the shock of the current of 500 volts 
or less, and we are all at sea again in our calculations. It 
is also to be remembered that the wires are not rendered 
harmless by reducing the tension below the point which 
means death to the average man. Accidents to persons 
and experiments in New York upon dogs show a wide varia- 
tion in individual powers of resistance to electricity. Some 
endure shocks which would ordinarily be expected to prove 
fatal, while others succumb to a much feebler shock, the re- 
sult depending upon the physical condition of the victim 
and other special circumstances. One is not encouraged to 
expose himself to be struck by lightning by the reflection 
that some persons have recovered from such shocks, or by 
the suggestion that the artificial current which threatens 
him is a few volts below the number which will certainly 
kill him, and that if his physical condition is all right he 
may possibly pull through with his life. 

KILLED BY THE TROLLEY. 

The Port Huron Electric Railway Company, reporting 
concerning the case of the lineman killed by its trolley wire 
in August, says : " We tested our current twice during the 
same day and found that it was running at 500 volts and a 
little under at times. There was no post-mortem made, the 
man to all appearances being strong and healthy. The cur- 
rent, you will notice, passed directly through the left side, 



60 

and may thus have caused a fatality that under other cir- 
cumstances would not have happened." 

In this case, by the railway's admission, a strong and 
healthy man was killed by a current of 500 volts or less, and 
the only reassuring suggestion tendered is to the effect that 
if the current had not touched the victim's vital organs they 
would probably have remained unaffected by it. It is also 
said, conceding that the trolley current will kill some men, 
that the wire is up in the air and only linemen and not 
passengers are exposed to it. But it is to be remembered 
that the main danger from high potential electric currents 
is not directly from their wires, which the public will dread 
and shun, but from otherwise harmless wires to which the 
deadly current has by some crossing been communicated. 
The most effective electric executioner of the age has been 
the hanging telegraph wire, harmless in itself, but a death 
dispenser because in connection somewhere with the electric 
light current. The various cords of the network of over- 
head wires in large cities are constantly coming in contact, 
and every wire in a city system is armed potentially with 
the death current of its neighbor. All should be buried in 
underground conduits, and pending this burial no additions 
to the network should be tolerated. 

THE PLEA FOR POLES AS STREET DECORATORS. 

The trolley argument, after demonstrating the harmless- 
ness of the current, generally goes on to reason the public 
into the belief that whereas other poles and wires are street 
obstructions and disfigurements, the trolley poles and wires 
are highly ornamental decorations, adding scenic attractions 
to the streets favored by their aesthetic presence. The in- 
creased danger from fire and the obstruction to the opera- 
tions of the firemen supplied by the overhead construction, 
which increase the insurance rates in some places where the 
trolley prevails, are generally ignored in the argument. 



61 

WHERE UNCLE SAM IS VULNERABLE. 

The rebuke of the European lessons to America on the 
subject of municipal rapid transit and improved motors 
strikes the greed of our capitalists and not the capacity of 
our inventors. The truth of the matter is that-there are in 
the United States at the present time pneumatic, storage 
battery and electric conduit motors that are as good as and 
in some respect better than these European devices. But 
they have been viewed as not so desirable, i. e., not so 
cheap as the trolley, and, speaking generally, they have on 
this side of the water been merely experimented with in a 
half-hearted way rather than adopted and practically used. 
It is only necessary that our electric and street railway com- 
panies shall cease to suppress American inventiveness in the 
interest of the trolley and give our inventors the opportunity 
and encouragement to perfect the better motors. The Euro- 
pean capitals suggest to the large cities of America that if 
they will firmly resist the attempt to foist upon them an ob- 
jectionable motor the capitalists will discover promptly that 
they can afford to supply the best forms of rapid transit 
motor that the world can furnish. 

WASHINGTON GIVES AS WELL AS TAKES A HINT. 

Iii Washington, where the law forbids the erection of any 
more overhead wires within the city limits, and where pub- 
lic opinion has decreed and is working the extinction of the 
car horse, the development of the street railways in respect 
to motive power is most interesting. The capital's leading 
line, the Washington and Georgetown railroad, has adopted 
the cable system and has 1 0.2(5 miles of double and .55 miles 
of single track <>f this construction of the finest modern type. 
The next road in importance, the Metropolitan line, has se- 
lected the storage battery and has spent much time and 
money in perfecting this system. The change from horses 
to a mechanical motor must be made upon this line before 
July 22, 1893. When in practical operation with its 8.36 



62 

miles of double and 2.35 of single track this will be the most 
extensive and most notable storage battery system in the 
world. The road claims for its inventions wonderful im- 
provements in the lightness of batteries and cars, the weight 
being reduced almost one-half; in length of life of the 
batteries, they being as nearly as possible indestructible ; in 
improved mechanical appliances for quickly changing the 
batteries, and in cheapness of operation. It thinks that it 
has obviated the difficulties which heretofore have been per- 
mitted to prevent the extensive practical use of this motor. 
An extremely successful storage battery system of an im- 
proved pattern is also said to be in operation between Mel- 
ford and Hopedale in Massachusetts. Washington has an 
actual as well as a proposed storage battery line, as the G 
street extension of the Eckington suburban road into the 
heart of the city, 1.17 miles in length, uses to the general 
satisfaction of the public this system. The storage battery 
and the pneumatic motor have the advantage over the cable 
and trolley and underground electric conduit, in that they 
supply each car with individual motive power, and it is not 
possible through an accident to a cable or to a single source 
of power supply to bring the whole system to a standstill. 
The perfected and cheapened storage battery promises to be 
the ideal motor. The Belt line, the third of the local street 
railways, with 6.60 miles of double track and 1.13 miles of 
single track, proposes to adopt soon an improved motive 
power, and has been looking over compressed air and car- 
bonic gas motors. Chicago, Toledo and some other Ameri- 
can cities have, it is said, experimented successfully on a 
small scale with the pneumatic motor for street railway pur- 
poses. It was expected that such a motor would be used 
on our suburban Brightwood avenue line after the conduit 
pneumatic system had failed to come up to the expectation 
of the builders of the road. But both the public and Con- 
gress became impatient at the delays in improving the 
motive power of this road, and by act of Congress a trolley 
is now to be used upon it, and it is being greatly extended 



63 

and double tracked. In its suburbs, therefore, the capital 
is tolerating and even preferring the trolley. Washington's 
objection to the trolley for urban use is not based upon 
ignorance of the merits of the motor for certain purposes 
and in its appropriate sphere. In the Eckington, George- 
town and Tenleytown and Rock Creek suburban lines, with 
a combined double trackage of over fourteen miles, it has 
as fine specimens of this style of road as the world can fur- 
nish. 

ELECTRIC CONDUITS IN WASHINGTON. 

The urban extension of the Rock Creek road, the trol- 
ley being barred by law, will use an underground conduit, 
similar to one successfully tested in Chicago, and in the 
general principles of construction something like the Buda- 
Pesth road. There are obvious drawbacks to the cheap 
operation of one end of a railway line by a motive power 
system different from that by which the greater part of the 
road is run. There is also a strong temptation to so manage 
a U'aiis that the cheaper motor shall appear the better and 
that the more expensive shall be made a failure. Allegheny 
City had such a line with three miles of trolley and one of 
underground conduit, which District Commissioner Ray- 
mond represented in 1888 to be in successful operation, and 
which Capt. Griffin, then of the District engineer depart- 
ment, elaborately described in an official report, saying that 
it was operated with wonderful success in two inches of 
snow in flie winter of 1887 '88. The combination of over- 
head construction for the suburbs, with an underground 
conduit for city use, is, however, good in theory and there 
seems to be no reason why it should not work admirably in 
practice. Before July 1, 1893, the Eckington road must 
change the motive power of the mile of its line lying within the 
city limits, that is at present operated by the trolley, to some 
form which will not require the overhead construction. It 
will select either the storage battery, which it uses on its 
present G street extension, or it will operate with an under- 



64 

ground electric conduit over all that part of its line which 
lies within the city, including an East Washington exten- 
sion authorized by law but not yet constructed, and includ- 
ing the section over which the storage battery cars now run. 
The Columbia railway, with 2.81 miles of double track, is 
also soon to adopt a mechanical motor, with either the stor- 
age battery or an underground electric conduit. Its choice 
will probably be determined by the degree of success of 
the Metropolitan storage battery when in practical opera- 
tion. The underground electric roads are expensive, 
whether in Buda-Pesth, Chicago, Allegheny City or Wash- 
ington, being exceeded in first cost only by the cable, and 
the local roads with smaller incomes than the leading lines 
enjoy, anxious to secure mechanical motors that will be well 
within their means, have studied to cheapen the cost of this 
kind of construction. A plan has been submitted to the 
Columbia, for instance, of using one conduit between its 
lines of double track to accommodate both sets of tracks, 
thus making one conduit do the work of the two that are 
supplied to double tracks ordinarily. The Washington and 
Arlington road, which has in operation three miles of its 
line from the end of the Aqueduct bridge to Arlington, 
using the trolley, is preparing this section and will soon 
have it ready to operate with an underground electric con- 
duit of a new pattern, which is also to be used upon the por- 
tion of this line within the City of Washington when it is 
constructed. In this electric conduit system there is no 
continuous conductor of exposed wire as in other systems. 
The working current is carried in an insulated cable and 
fed automatically to successive short sections of the road as 
the car passes over each section. The loss of current by 
leakage from miles of exposed wire is by this device avoided 
and the leakage reduced to a minimum. 

It appears that all the various forms of improved motor, 
including that which bestows a unique distinction upon 
Buda-Pesth, are now being or are soon to be thoroughly, 



65 

practically and extensively used in Washington. The cap- 
ital is already notable as the only city in the world in which 
the improved grooved rail has entirely superseded the pro- 
jecting, wheel-wrenching T-rail. Washington has within 
the last twenty years developed in many features of beauty, 
progressiveness and good government into the model Amer- 
ican city, which the people of the republic visit not only 
with pleasure and gratified pride, but also with substantial 
profit in hints derived concerning modern municipal develop- 
ment which may be utilized at home. It is well within the 
bounds of probability that Washington, combining in its 
municipal policy the push and progress of the new with the 
solidity and safety of the old world, will in the near future 
become in the matter of local rapid transit the model city 
not only of America, but of the world, to which students 
from all parts of the globe will resort for suggestions con- 
cerning the latest and best forms of street railway motor. 

[The Eckington railway has discontinued the use of 
the storage battery on its urban extension, alleging this 
motor to be an expensive failure. The storage battery com- 
pany affirms that its motor was a success as long as it had 
charge of the operation of the cars, and that the railway has 
either through negligence or with deliberate intent ruined 
the motors furnished to it. A suit brought by the motor 
company against the railway is pending, and when tried will 
probably throw light upon the facts concerning this par- 
ticular storage battery motor. The Eckington railway has 
secured an extension until July, 1895, of the time of chang- 
ing its motive power. 

The Rock Creek road has made use of an electric con- 
duit system upon its urban extension, as indicated above, 
and this piece of road, about a mile in length, has been thus 
operated with great success. A charter is now asked from 
Congress for a new trunk line street railway which proposes 
to use this motor. 

The Columbia road indicates its intention of putting in 
the cable. 

5 



66 

The Metropolitan railway has abandoned its experiments 
with the storage battery, and is now (June, 1894) asking 
permission from Congress to make use of the Buda-Pesth 
system. 

An Americanized form of the Buda-Pesth conduit system 
is thus already in practical operation in Washington on part 
of the Rock Creek road, and the Metropolitan proposes, if 
Congress is willing, to adopt the Buda-Pesth system with a 
very much narrower slot for use on all its lines.] 



67 



Life at the Hot Springs. 



THE TRUE LAND OF THE SKALD. 



A City to be Sold to Its Citizens — The Boiling, Stewing and 
Frying of Men. 



[Correspondence of The Star.] 

Hot Springs, Ark., December 22, 1879. 
At Hot Springs there is an exchange of ills. One is freed 
from blood disorders and contracts " the blues." So it 
strikes one at first. An invalid's first day here, if mine 
may be taken as a fair sample, is gloomy and peculiar. 
If he has come from the North by way of St. Louis, the 
previous day and night have furnished an appropriate pre- 
face to the first chapter of Hot Springs experiences. Leav- 
ing St. Louis there has been an all-day struggle for the pos- 
session and retention of seats, in which the vanquished 
have paid extra for refuge in the Pullman, or have stood 
at the ends of the cars and watched with greedy eyes for 
some one to arrive at his station and leave an opening. 
The victors in the fray have been penned in a hot, unhealthy 
atmosphere, and have been entertained by the squallings of 
babies being emigrated to Texas. The troubled sleep of 
the night has been broken in the early morning by the 
necessity of changing cars at Malvern to the short, narrow- 
gauge line which runs to Hot Springs ; for by a provoking 
perversity the train has selected this particular morning in 
the week to be on time. Before our invalid is fairly settled 
in his seat in the narrow-gauge car, a boarding house drum- 
mer has fastened upon him. Arriving at his destination 
he is placed in a coach, painted a bilious yellow, and driven 
into the city. 



68 



THE FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE PLACE 

is given by the grave-yard, which stands on the outskirts 
welcoming the invalid visitor with ghastly suggestiveness. 
It has been raining, and as the coach enters the main 
street, traversing the ravine among the Ozark mountains in 
which the springs are found, black mud sticks to the wheels. 
The street is lined with low frame houses, mostly shabby, 
and threaded by a track over which cars are pulled at a 
sleepy pace by mules, which stop to doze at short intervals 
on switches. Having breakfasted, the stranger feels strong 
enough to see more. He stumbles along a wooden plank- 
walk, here half torn away, here full of holes, nearly every- 
where rotten, dilapidated and dangerous. While think- 
ing that no place needs better pavements and that none has 
worse, and wondering whether their condition is not an in- 
genious device to keep visitors from mischief and damp air 
by confining them to their rooms at night, he finds himself 
an object of assault. 

THE CHARGE OF THE DRUMMER'S BRIGADE. 

Drummers to the right of him, left of him, behind him, 
volley and thunder the praises of Dr. A. of Mr. B.'s drug 
store, of the XX bath house, of Mrs. C.'s boarding house. 
They engage in conversation with him on all sorts of pre- 
texts. They turn up in the most unpromising-looking in- 
dividuals and in the most unexpected places. The ten- 
dency of their arguments, taken collectively, is to lead him 
to believe that it will not be safe for him to eat, drink, 
bathe, or consult a physician while at Hot Springs. But 
he meets other people. Some are carried in litters or chairs ; 
others move along after every conceivable fashion, from the 
plain walk, or unadulterated hobble, to the most orna- 
mented and complicated systems of progression imaginable. 
He sees some persons with, and some without, noses. In his 
excitement he is convincing himself that the popular opinion 
is opposed to indulgence in these excrescences, when suddenly 
he meets a man completely run to nose, as it were, with 



69 

proboscis enough to compensate for the nasal deficiencies of 
all the others. Then he observes a creek flowing by the 
side of the street, and recognizes it with difficulty, as the 
"crystal brooklet" of imaginative Hot Springs descriptions. 
It is an open sewer, choked in places with shingles, barrel- 
staves, tin-cans and other matter. A faint odor, which is 
not of Araby, is wafted to his nostrils, and he envies the 
noseless men. 

WHERE DOCTORS MOST DO CONGREGATE. 

He reads the signs as he walks along. He thinks that 
he has solved the mystery of what becomes of the countless 
doctor graduates, which, with its fellow mystery of what 
becomes of the pins, has so long puzzled mankind. The 
more he sees the more firmly he is convinced that Hot 
Springs is a city of doctors' shops, drug stores, bath houses 
and boarding houses, with a few stores and churches thrown 
in to fill up the chinks. He reaches a point of the 
street, opposite which the mountain to the east is bare 
of houses, and from spots upon it and along its foot 
vapor rises into the air. He has come to the springs, 
and he knows that according to the traditions of the place 
he is near the infernal regions. He permits himself to 
wonder whether, if Hot Springs were there in reality, life 
in it would not be more cheerful. Then he gets his shoes 
blacked by the crawling remains of a negro stricken with 
paralysis, while the shadow of a man, with canes to sell, 
confides to him in a hollow voice that he has a tape-worm 
which every now and then grips him by the stomach, which 
organ must then be pounded until the "varmint" lets go. 
The stranger rushes desperately to his room and passes 
the rest of the day in painful meditation. But the city 

IMPROVES WITH LONGER ACQUAINTANCE, 

and this fit of melancholy soon passes off. Relief is found 
more rapidly, perhaps, if purer air and more cheerful 
sights are sought at some boarding house away from 
the main street, but on or near the line of the street 



70 

cars. In a short time the peculiarities of the place become 
interesting, even amusing, rather than depressing. The 
torn-up sidewalks quickly lose terrors for one who has 
known Washington during its most destructive era of public 
improvements ; and the odorous creek even in warm weather 
cannot greatly offend the senses of one who has had a 
smelling acquaintanceship with the old Washington canal. 
Some of the visitors might even be disposed to vote to retain 
the street in its perilous condition. Excitements here, 
though rather more numerous than the snakes in Ireland, 
do not compare favorably with the number of Washington 
notaries public ; and invalids found something to stir the 
blood in making their way with characteristic American dar- 
ing over the rickety sidewalks at peril of life and limb, 
while they dodged the shower of stones blasted from the 
side of the mountain in the excavations for a new bath-house. 
But new foot-ways are building in places, the frame-work of 
the bath-house is up, and this amusement is killed. The hot 
waters soon come to have a positive fascination, whether 
used as a bath or as a beverage. Then to explore the 
windings of Hot Springs City through the neighboring val- 
leys and over the sides of adjoining mountains, to collect 
specimens of the many-colored stones that are found in every 
walk, to view the city and surrounding country from the 
wooden observatory on Hot Springs mountain, to ride horse- 
back to various cold springs in the vicinity or to make the 
same trips on foot, furnish sport to many. As the number 
of strangers here at any time, counting each visitor as one 
whether or not enough of his members remain to consti- 
tute a quorum, is said to average several thousand, one is 
almost certain to find congenial spirits who will help him 
to drive away " the blues " when they threaten. So that 
Hot Springs is a few degrees better than endurable, after all. 

HOW WE BATHE. 

When the Indians ventured timidly into the mysterious 
pools formed where the heated waters flowed from the earth 



71 

and rock, they were not sustained in faith by doctors or 
physically reinforced by drugs. The Arkansas pioneers who 
tested the great water cure, though denied modern luxuries, 
bathed freely and without fear. But the tendency to find 
mortal dangers lurking in things which our ancestors con- 
sidered harmless has caused it to be discovered that later 
visitors less hardy than their predecessors, need to be in- 
spected before bathing, lest through some abnormal condi- 
tion of the heart or lungs the use of the waters prove fatal. 
So consider yourself inspected, and come with me to that 
particular one of the half-dozen bath-houses which we hap- 
pen to favor with our patronage. There is a gentlemen's 
parlor on one side, and a ladies' parlor on the other, in 
which the expectant bathers await their turns, and in which 
they cool off after bathing. In the hall-way between them 
sits the proprietor, and behind him are the bath-rooms. 
When one enters he asks: "How long before my bath?'' 
When the establishment is crowded the answer is generally 
" Ten minutes," which is the formula for an indefinite period. 
The answer to those who have waited two or three periods 
of ten minutes is decided, it is thought, by the amount of 
exasperation visible on the face of the inquirer. It is 
curious to observe the behavior of the different persons com- 
pelled to wait long for their turns. The following are the 
gradations of impatience verbally indicated among the 
men : — (1) Insinuatingly : " Don't let anybody get ahead of 
me, please." (2) Jokingly: " Isn't that man in No. 2 par- 
boiled yet? " (3) Complainingly : " The fellow ahead of me 
will certainly do himself an injury. He's been in soak for 
an hour." (4) In the highest exasperation : " For Heaven's 
sake, have that dead man removed from No. 2. He'll begin 
to decompose if you don't take him out pretty soon." The 
women fidget, but as a rule say little. In respect to the con- 
trasting conduct of the two sexes under the circumstances, 
an observant attendant says : " The men cusses and stays ; 
the women keeps quiet, but quits." 



72 



THE BATHER S BILL OP PARE. 



A full bath consists of three courses. A boil of nine 
minutes or more in a tub, and a combined fry and 
stew, accomplished by sitting for several minutes on a hot 
plank in a box filled with vapor. Sometimes a " pack " is 
added, in which one is swaddled in blankets and converts 
himself into a sieve, pouring into his mouth hot water in co- 
pious draughts, which straightway exudes from every pore. 
On a little shelf above the bath tub are a thermometer, a 
tin cup and a three-minute sand glass. Sometimes the latter 
is in bad condition, with a disreputable, banged-up look, 
suggesting that it, too, has come to Hot Springs for its health. 
This kind of glass takes an unknown time to empty itself 
of sand, and causes wonderment, over-bathing and profanity. 
While one is in the tub the hot water is generally left run- 
ning for a while, so that the temperature of the bath may 
be gradually increased. In case of temporary disablement, 
by paralysis or otherwise, a bather may find himself in the 
disagreeable predicament of the youth pictured by Punch's 
caricaturist, who dances about in a tub with lively emotion 
depicted on his countenance, shouting : "Help! help! I've 
turned on the hot water and can't turn it off again ! " The 
predominant noises of the establishment are the calls of 
bathers for their attendants as the different stages of the 
bath are reached, and a sound of slapping such as is seldom 
heard outside of a nursery. The most heart-rending sound 
is said to be the hasty remonstrance of one, who, as he takes 
a douche, in which a stream of hot water is applied directly 
to the part affected, receives through mistake a bath of 
scalding temperature. The charge for baths is five dollars 
for a course of twenty-one, and one dollar a week is paid to 
your attendant. But you may bathe more cheaply. Climb 
Hot Springs mountain, where the water flows down the side 
leaving a green deposit, until you are among the pipes en- 
closed in wood, which conduct the water to the bath houses. 
In the course of a ramble it is likely that you will see 



73 

several persons sitting at small pools, either bandaging their 
legs after a bath or unwrapping preparatory to one. Then 
there is a large pool called the Mud Hole, enclosed in a 
building, in which one may bathe without charge after a 
certain hour. 

THE "CORN HOLE." 

But the " corn hole," the waters of which are said to 
soften and remove these excrescences, is the point of great 
interest. Ladies have the exclusive use of it in the morn- 
ing and gentlemen in the afternoon. The waters of the 
spring flow into a circular basin, covered by a tent and lined 
by planks and cushions on which men are seated close to- 
gether with their feet and ankles in the pool. Some remain 
in soak for hours. It is truly a democratic gathering. A 
judge, a tramp, a Senator, a backwoodsman, may here be 
sandwiched. A glossy beaver, a planter's sombrero and a 
disreputable slouch are seen in close proximity. A frowsy 
shirt, threadbare pants and well-worn moccasins contrast 
strangely with the immaculate toilet of some city " swell." 
The late unpleasantness is a frequent topic of conversation. 
And I recall few spectacles more memorable than that of a 
bloodthirsty military chap, crouched all in a heap, with 
head down and hands as well as feet in the water, growing 
excited over war reminiscences. 

DO THE WATERS «CURE? 

Like all other springs in the United States, these are un- 
doubtedly the fountains of eternal youth which Ponce de 
Leon sought. Like other waters prescribed as baths, they 
also suggest one or more of the Scriptural pools of healing. 
No one spring can claim, no pool can monopolize, these 
ancient allusions. But unlike many other springs, there is 
no doubt that these waters cure, sometimes. Indeed, one 
man given up for dead by half-a-dozen doctors was, it is 
said, recently brought to life here. To be sure, he had not 
actually bathed, but who can say how far the alleged electri- 
cal influences of the water permeate the surrounding atmos- 



74 

phere and give it life-restoring properties ? These electrical 
influences, which have thrilled various newspaper correspond- 
ents and others, I take on faith. I have never felt them, 
but I have had experiences which suggest that there may be 
something in the theory. I know, for instance, that one 
who steps into his bath-tub without previously testing the 
water with a thermometer, sometimes steps out again with 
the same celerity of movement and the mingled astonish- 
ment and grief of mien that characterize one who has re- 
ceived an unexpected shock from a galvanic battery. It is 
reasonably certain, however, that there is something peculiar 
and undiscovered about the waters which enables them, in 
instances, to make marvellous cures. Faith, perspiration 
and a clean skin can effect much in the way of physical 
improvement ; but, unaided, they could hardly have re- 
stored animation, health and strength to the tottering frag- 
ments of humanity that have visited Hot Springs and have 
gone away new-made men. 

A CITY FOR SALE. 

In 1832 the government reserved the Hot Springs and 
about four square miles of the surrounding country from 
sale and occupation. In time this fact was overlooked or 
neglected, both by people and government. A settlement 
grew up about the springs. Litigation among the settlers 
finally resulted in a decision by the Supreme Court that 
none of them had valid titles to their lands, the ground 
being a government reservation. For a time a receiver col- 
lected rents for the government. Finally a commissioD was 
appointed to lay out the reservation into city streets and 
blocks, to decide among claimants which have preferred 
rights to purchase from the government by reason of im- 
provements on land, and to fix the prices at which the land 
shall be sold to such claimants, but Hot Springs mountain is 
reserved permanently from sale. All the claims have been 
adjudicated and certificates have been delivered, twelve 
months being allowed in which to pay for the lots. 



75 



THE FUTURE OF HOT SPRINGS. 

Matters at Hot Springs are not at a standstill, even in the 
present unsettled condition of affairs. The sound of hammer 
and saw is heard in the land. In pursuance of their in- 
structions to lay out streets, the commissioners have com- 
pleted a city on paper. When the real city gives way to 
the theoretical, it will be to the advantage of its appearance 
and its sanitary condition. The houses on the line of the 
creek have been removed or destroyed, and the main street 
will be a comparatively wide one. Like its visitors, the 
city is " all torn to pieces " now, and is undergoing a build- 
ing-up anew such as they experience under the action of 
its waters. But Hot Springs will never be restored to per- 
fect health until questions of title have been set at rest for- 
ever, and it is owned by its citizens. When that happy day 
comes a brilliant future may be pictured for the place. A 
prosperous, bustling city is almost certain to find its location 
here, furnished with everything that ingenuity can devise 
to attract and entertain visitors ; with its drives and parks, 
its great hotels, and its numerous and extensive bathing 
establishments, utilizing every gill of the 500,000 gallons 
of hot water that flow daily from more than 70 springs. 
Arkansas has some good land, I am told, and claims mineral 
wealth. Indeed Hot Springs itself has been flurried by 
newspaper announcements of the sale of silver mines in 
the vicinity, and by the discovery of gold indications said 
to be of astonishing richness, less than fifteen miles away. 
But until something more definite is established concerning 
the gold and silver wealth of the State, one cannot escape 
the conviction that Arkansas was created mainly to furnisli 
a location for Hot Springs ; and that the hot springs were 
made to issue here, providentially, in order that some in- 
ducement sufficiently powerful to draw people into Arkan- 
sas might not be wanting. 



77 



Our Next Door Neighbors. 



THE HOME OF EVANGELINE. 



HOW THE TIDE COMES IN AT THE BAY OF FUNDY. 



On the Shores of the Basin of Minas — The Ghost of the Ex- 
pelled Frenchman — Acadian Dykes, Acadian Willows and a 
Nova Scotian Bull — The Continent' s Fog Factory. 



From the Washington Evening Star, September 28, 1889. 

[Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.] 

Steamer Acadia, Minas Basin, Nova Scotia. 

Evangeline, that ill-fated young French woman whom 
Longfellow kills and buries in dactylic hexameters, is the 
distinguished personage of Nova Scotia. The French are 
amusingly revenged upon their English conquerors in Brit- 
ish North America. 

In Quebec, though nominally dependent, they remain 
and prevail. To Nova Scotia, from which they were ex- 
pelled, they supply historic and poetic interest, the topics of 
the guide-books and the main attractions for tourists. In- 
deed, English Nova Scotia is notable principally as occupy- 
ing the site of French Acadia. The living, prevailing 
Frenchman attracts in Quebec ; the ghost of the expelled 
Frenchman is the most interesting personage of Nova 
Scotia. 

The American tourist seeks the valleys of Windsor and 
Annapolis on the shores of the basin of Minas, where the 
Acadians dwelt, and, with the poem of Evangeline as a 
guide book, ransacks the country for relics of the French 
occupation. The historian and the poet say that in 1755 
the French lived in these happy valleys in a condition of 



78 

ideal bliss, luxuriating in fine crops, cattle and poultry, in 
early marriages, in the absence of paupers and law suits, in 
plenty of eating apples, in contented dispositions, and an 
abundance of " beer and cyder." But Acadia had passed 
under the control of the British, who were still at war with 
other Frenchmen in North America, and the Acadians 
were suspected of rendering aid and comfort to the latter. 
The Acadian realization of the dreams of the golden age 
was therefore rudely interrupted. British armed forces 
bundled the French owners out of the country and turned 
over their property to faithful subjects of the crown. Evan- 
geline was among the scattered Acadians, and after the 
expulsion she spent the rest of her life in a search for her 
lover, Gabriel. This young man's conduct was peculiar 
and exasperating. While his sweetheart was energetically 
hunting for him over thousands of miles of territory he re- 
mained lumpishly in Louisiana during the yearning and 
the waiting and the whining until, as Longfellow poetically 
words it, he became " tedious to men and to maidens," or as 
we express it in prose, until he made everybody tired. And 
just as Evangeline had almost cornered him he moved list- 
lessly out of the way, upon the pretext of some irrelevant 
hunting expedition and never came back. He was a slow 
youth and drifted naturally to a congenial resting place in 
Philadelphia, where he accomplished in the almshouse a 
lingering death to slow (hexameter) music. It is proper 
to give some space to Evangeline's affairs, because, as I 
have said, she is the central figure of interest in Nova 
Scotia. Judge Haliburton, better known in America as 
" Sam Slick," is perhaps, second among the local notabilities. 

THE HOME OF EVANGELINE. 

Evangeline lived at Grand Pre, so we bought tickets for 
the station of that name on the Windsor and Annapolis 
railroad, and landed when the conductor called "Gran' 
Perree ! " 

" In the Acadian land on the shores of the basin of Minas 
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
Lay in the fruitful valley." 



79 

The modern Grand Pre is just as quiet and secluded as 
that of Acadie. Only a few widely separated houses were 
seen in a preliminary survey of the land from the station. 
The fruitful valley lay before us, some orchards of hard and 
bitter winter apples supplying the fruit. The railroad 
seems to run through the Acadian farm of the late Mr. 
Bellefontaine, Evangeline's esteemed father, for we were 
now near to the basin and the dyke meadows, and our 
poetic guide-book locates Evangeline's home as follows : 

" Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the basin of Minas, 
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand Pre 
Dwelt in his goodly acres." 

We turned our faces toward the basin and walked through 
the fields in which Evangeline played, or, later, promenaded 
with Gabriel. A row of misshapen, venerable willows is 
the most notable among the unmistakable relics of the 
French occupation. We climbed over, through and under 
a fence, respectively, to get to the willows, and played the 
part of vandals, pocketing pieces of the bark as mementoes. 
Then we examined the remains of an old French well 
(alleged) in the same field, and pumped ineffectually at the 
handle of the rotting pump which is now placed over it. 

We are ready to believe that the well is the same which 
is described by our guide book, whose waters Evangeline 
has tasted. 

" Further down on the slope of the hill was the well, with its moss-grown 
Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses." 

We had further and less agreeable evidence that we 
struck Mr. Bellefontaine's place. The poet describing 
Evangeline's father's herd, says: 

" Pawing the ground they came * * * 
And with their nostrils distended." 

Even as we were experimenting with Evangeline's well, 
curious to ascertain whether its water was as ancient to the 
taste as to the smell, these pawing, tail-switching Bellefon- 
taine cattle bore down upon us. We retired expeditiously 
to our willows, the ladies doing themselves great credit as 



80 

sprinters. Feeling sure that Evangeline must have utilized 
these trees in giddy youth, we climbed their twisted trunks 
and low branches and arranged ourselves in easy Evan- 
gelinistic attitudes. But we did not retain them long, for 
the nostril-distended cattle aforesaid, which had routed us 
from the well, showed a disposition to take possession of the 
entire field, and a big-horned bull came charging toward us. 

THE VIEW AT GRAND PRE. 

We left at once, climbing over, under and through the 
fence as before, but combining the three methods of pro- 
gression and passage more promiscuously and carelessly 
than in our entrance. The notable features of the field into 
which we thus rapidly removed ourselves were the supposed 
traces of some old French cellars. We could now look 
across the dyke meadows to the edge of the water in Minas 
basin. Portions of the French dykes, bearing testimony to 
their strength of build and durability of material, are still 
to be found, but the working dykes are of comparatively re- 
cent construction. They have been built since a great 
tidal wave and flood about twenty years ago. Our landlord 
at Wolfville, the town next to Grand Pre, gives a graphic 
description of the scene when the dykes were then swept 
away. It seems that one of the farmers had, Noahlike, pre- 
dicted the coming of a great flood, and on the day fixed had 
marched himself down to the meadows, and notwithstand- 
ing jeers, had driven his cattle from the dykes to the high 
ground. The high tide and flood came according to proph- 
ecy, and the cattle of the mocking neighbors of the prophet 
were, in the main, swept away and drowned. The dyke 
system, as now seen from Grand Pre, is in excellent shape, 
though the work of repairing after the flood was slow and 
expensive. The dyke meadows furnish fertilizing soil and 
free pasturage of the finest sort to the farmers of the neigh- 
borhood. Within easy distance of our station at Grand Pre 
is the mouth of the Gasperau, where the British war vessels 
lay until they were filled with the Acadian settlers to be 



81 

transported. At this point Evangeline and Gabriel were 
separated. Here, too, Benedict Bellefontaine died. Having 
exhausted the supply of reminders of Evangeline and her 
family, and noting that our host the bull was still on guard 
at the willows, we circled back to the station and took the 
first train thereafter from Grand Pre. 

CURIOUS FEATURES OF MINAS BASIN. 

The basin of Minas is an arm of the bay of Fundy. At 
its mouth Cape Blomidon pushes far to the north and con- 
tracts the opening to a narrow strait. The bay of Fundy 
tides, the highest in the world, rising from 60 to 90 feet, 
come tumbling through this opening and vastly increase 
the water area of the basin. At low tide there is a broad 
strip of mud or wet beach encircling the whole basin. At 
high tide the mud is covered with a navigable depth of 
water and small vessels dart in and out. The villages on 
the south shore of the basin are seaport towns for a few 
hours of each day, and for the rest of the time their wharves 
look out upon a monotonous stretch of mud, in which ships 
may be imbedded. The action of the wonderful tides of 
this region is an unfailing subject of curiosity and interest 
to the stranger, and thereby hangs a tale — the tale of our 
trip by steamer over the basin of Minas in search of the 
tidal wave from the bay of Fundy. Our guide-book said 
on this subject : 

" In haste the refluent ocean 
Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and slippery seaweed. 
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing ocean, 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles and leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors." 

The ladies of our party reasoned that if the ocean in going 
down left hastily, and all at once, and accompanied the 
performance with a bellow, it would naturally go through 
a similar procedure in coming back again. The notion 
they derived, I believe, of the bay of Fundy tidal wave was 
that of a wall of water 60 feet high that came bellowing up 
the beach like a bull of Bashan or of Grand Pre and filled 

6 



82 

the eye like the flood at Johnstown, and an unquenchable 
curiosity to gaze on this marvel took possession of them. 
Like the hunters of the snark : 

" They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care ; 
They pursued it with forks and hope." 

And never since the time of the snark hunt has there been, 
I believe, a desperate search so much resembling it as our 

QUEST OF THE GREAT TIDAL WAVE. 

The dribbling of the tide over the miles of nearly level 
mud beach in front of Grand Pre, Wolfville and neighbor- 
ing villages on the south shore of the basin of Minas was 
not at all what they desired and expected. The destination 
of our trip was the precipitous shore of Cape Blomidon, or 
of the land on the other side of the basin, or the narrow 
opening through which the bay of Fundy pushed its waters 
into the basin of Minas. Our expedition began at Hants- 
port, one of the basin's south shore twice-a-day seaports, 
where we left the railroad train in light marching order 
to take a small steamer which was advertised to run 
at high tide to Parrsboro, on the other side of the basin. 
We found our steamer, the Hiawatha, resting on the dry 
beach at the end of its wharf. The water line was some 
distance out, but creeping steadily nearer. A number 
of other vessels occupied what a Washingtonian would 
be tempted to call the Minas or Hantsport flats. The 
only other indication of activity in Hantsport was the 
skeleton of a wooden ship in course of construction. 
Similar skeletons were seen at the other Minas villages. 
But the once flourishing industry of ship-building' has 
shrunk almost to nothing since the decadence of the wooden 
ship and the decay of trade with the United States under 
the Dominion policy of protection. We descended into the 
Hiawatha from the wharf by means of a steep ladder and 
very soon climbed back again. A search for information 
developed certain facts which caused this sudden retreat. 
We could allow only two days for the tidal-wave trip. It 



83 

t 

would be necessary to cross the basin at high tide of one 
day and return at a time which would enable the steamer 
to run into the temporary seaports on the south shore at 
high tide on the next day. The ladies failed to discover in 
this prospect any opportunity to observe their monster 
wave, so we scrambled up the ladder, with the intention of 
going by another boat to a village near Cape Blomidon 
on the south shore, and of visiting the cape the next morn- 
ing at high tide by means of a carriage. Thus fate turned 
our steps toward 

THE ACADIA, A MICROSCOPIC STEAMER, 

which we discovered after some search hidden in the mud 
behind one of the wharves. The Hiawatha is small, but 
she is so large that she is compelled to run straight across 
the basin at high tide, and can waste no time in visiting on 
the way. The Acadia, however, can float and run in a 
moistened gutter, and therefore skirts the whole south shore 
of the basin, stopping at the various villages, before she 
crosses to the north shore. She is manned by three men. 
The captain is the Pooh Bah of the ship, serving also as 
pilot, purser and deck hand. As we were about to descend 
into the Acadia the consolidated captain and crew aforesaid 
requested us to wait a few minutes. We discovered that 
Hantsport dock can get up a strike as well as the docks at 
London. It seems that the Hiawatha and the Acadia, the 
only steamers on the basin, belong to the same owners, and 
the engineer of one of them had just begun an obstinate and 
determined strike. Unless an amicable settlement could be 
effected only one of the steamers could make its trip, and 
we were advised to save ourselves the descent into the 
Acadia until we were sure that she would leave the wharf. 
The officers and crews of the Hiawatha and Acadia, to tl;e 
number of at least a half dozen persons, gathered in an ex- 
cited group on the wharf and discussed the matter from 
every point of view with a number of Hantsporters as an 
interested audience, until the water began to creep under 



84 

the Acadia and she gave a shiver and a wriggle preliminary 
to floating. Then it was decided to hold the Hiawatha and 
send out the Acadia, a decision which I suspect was some- 
what influenced by the fact that our party furnished three 
paying passengers for the Acadia, whose fares would be lost 
if she failed to make the trip. So we embarked and the 
Acadia steamed away from Hansport over the flats, with 
many puffings and several hair-raising blasts from a fog- 
horn whistle, the sound from which is many thousand times 
larger than the Acadia itself. We took possession of the 
steamer's pilot house, and the captain pointed out to us the 
objects of interest as we skirted the dyke meadows, passed 
the Gaspereau's mouth, the scene of the embarkation of the 
Acadians, and twisted up a narrow, crooked channel through 
the flats to the wharf at Wolfville. At this point the 
steamer took on four or five additional passengers and 
assumed the appearance of an overcrowded excursion boat. 
After diving in and out of several similar seaports we ap- 
proached the one at which we were to leave the steamer to 
make the land trip to Blomidon. Our conversation in the 
pilot house had placed us on excellent terms with the captain, 
and at this juncture he upset our plans and caused us to 
hold another counsel of war by urging that we cross the 
basin to a place called Partridge Island, whose attractions 
he painted in glowing terms, instead of making the trip by 
carriage to Blomidon, which, he predicted, would be a tedi- 
ous and unsatisfactory journey. 

HO ! FOR TARTRIDGE ISLAND. 

The objection concerning the tides he met by stating that 
the Partridge Island hotel is at the very edge of the water, 
and that the ladies could see the tide come in from the 
windows of their rooms in the middle of the night. The 
objection that we were starving and could not possibly wait 
until we had crossed the basin before getting something to 
eat was brushed aside by his offer to provide us with a lunch. 
This argument carried the day. The Acadia is so small 



85 

that it hardly seemed possible that it could have an 
interior, but it really has, and in due course we descended 
into our " lunch room." It was small and close, and the 
steam from the boiler was blown by the wind directly into 
it, until it seemed to us that we might as well have lunched 
in the boiler itself. For lunch we had tea, without milk, 
in which we stirred brown sugar with pewter spoons ; large, 
hard crackers ; huckleberry pie eaten with knives, no forks 
being among the steamer's furnishings, and uncooked huckle- 
berries. We were hungry and ate the lunch. It did not 
cost much, and we had a Turkish bath thrown in gratui- 
tously. In crossing to the north shore of the basin we steamed 
close to the side of Cape Blomidon, which seemed to stretch 
farther and farther in front of us the more of it we passed. 
The dark mass of the promontory, the lighter wall-like layer 
along the upper edge, and the trees projecting cannon-like 
above this wall give Cape Blomidon the appearance of a 
fortress. 

Finally shaking itself loose from Blomidon the steamer 
puffed across the narrowest part of the basin to the north 
shore and to Partridge Island, which is so called, first, be- 
cause 

NO SUCH THING AS A PARTRIDGE 

was ever seen upon it, and, second, because it is not an 
island. We landed at a long, strongly-built pier with open- 
ings at different heights in its end and side to permit land- 
ings to be made at different stages of the tide. Our hotel 
was found to be an old-fashioned country boarding house 
near the end of the pier. Walking toward the bay of 
Fundy from the hotel we picked our way along a wonderful 
beach, a mass of pebbles, several hundred feet wide at low 
tide, in which shells and geological specimens of great in- 
terest are found. Following the curve of this beach we soon 
found ourselves under the cliffs of a promontory, which here 
pushes out into the basin. Leaving the ladies to collect 
specimens I climbed by a circuitous path to the top of the 
promontory and enjoyed a fine view from the seaward and 



86 

more precipitous side of the cliff. The junction of the basin 
of Minas and the bay of Fundy, outlined by Capes Sharp 
and Split, lay before me, and across the basin frowning 
Blomidon aimed at me its forest guns. The tide was now 
low and we were able to explore the beach on both sides of 
the cliff. It was interesting to walk close to the foot of the 
perpendicular rocks, where only a short time ago big waves 
were dashing and to gather waifs from the sea, shells and 
weeds, amethysts, acadialyte and other 'lytes. The best 
specimens of amethysts are found on the opposite shore at 
Cape Blomidon, but there was enough of geological material 
to be found at Partridge Island. We collected something 
less than a ton of specimens, so that our trunks henceforth 
became the source of temporary suspicion and joyful expec- 
tation to customs officers and of unvaried bitterness of 
spirit to porters along our homeward route. These speci- 
mens with the willow bark from Grand Pre, are our only 
permanent reminders of Nova Scotia. Our efforts to obtain 
as a characteristic souvenir, a blue-nosed image made of 
codfish scales was unsuccessful, and we had no facilities for 
the conveyance of a chunk of the fog. 

It was now low tide, and we walked on the beach out to 
the end of the pier where the Acadia stood on firm ground 
at the foot of a wall of logs fifty-five feet high, covered 
with moss and matted sea-weed. The Acadia passes a 
curious existence. It is amphibious. It lives for a few 
hours of each day in and on the water, and for the rest of 
the time it dwells on dry land. Its career is one of vicis- 
situdes. It has all the ups and downs of life of an elevator 
boy. At low tide it is helplessly stranded at the foot of 
a sixty-foot pier ; at high tide it has risen sixty feet or there- 
abouts and is tugging at ropes holding it to the top of the pier. 
The ladies, the hunters of the tidal wave, arose at 2 o'clock 
in the morning to see high tide. They affirm that the water 
washed over the top of the pier, and in a general way that 
it was magnificent. Whether it came with a bellow or like 



87 

a Johnstown flood deponents say not. Their silence sug- 
gests that this tide rose very much like any other tide, and 
gives the same sort of inconsequential ending to our quest of 
the monster wave that characterized the hunting of the 
snark. 

WHERE FOGS ARE MADE. 

The great drawback to Partridge Island as a popular 
summer resort is probably the fog, which settled down upon 
everything, obstructing the view and making the atmos- 
phere damp and uncomfortable, not long before we steamed 
away on the Acadia for our return trip. The bay of Fundy is 
as notorious for its fog as for tides. Its fog is rather thicker 
than, but not so warm as, a blanket. This is the greatest 
fog-factory on the continent. It runs night and day in the 
manufacture of the article and there has never been a strike 
to interfere with its operations. It is denied that this fog 
can climb over or get around Blomidon to the south shore 
Acadian villages. Longfellow says: 

" Aloft on the mountains 
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic 
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended." 

The modern successors to the Acadians make similar state- 
ments. If this be true, the south shore in immunity from 
fog has one strong recommendation to counterbalance the 
attractions of Partridge Island and the north shore. 

There are some notable differences between the ancient 
and modern Acadians. The contented dwellers in the 
happy valley knew nothing of discord or complaints. The 
disconsolate wailing was confined to the elements. 

" Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep- voiced neighboring ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest." 

The new Acadians do their own growling, and do it with 
enthusiasm ; and Boston is preferred to Acadie, no longer 
the happy valley. Their main grievance is the union of 
Nova Scotia to the Dominion, with the necessary result of 
the adoption by her of the Dominion's protective policy, 
which has worked disastrous results in destroying a large 



88 

part of the former profitable trade with New England. 
Commercially the maritime provinces are naturally in close 
relations with New England, much closer than with the in- 
land provinces which govern the revenue policy of the 
Dominion. It is consequently in the maritime provinces 
that the nearest approach to 

A SENTIMENT FAVORABLE TO ANNEXATION 

to the United States is to be discovered. Their present an- 
nexation talk, however, is based largely upon the prospect 
of commercial advantages not to be otherwise obtained. If 
free trade with the United States could be had very few in- 
deed would give a second thought to the question of polit- 
ical union at this time. 

There is no immediate prospect of the peaceable annexa- 
tion of Canada or any part of it to the United States. In 
Ontario and Quebec the average citizen thinks little of the 
subject. " Annexationist " is there a term of rej^roach. 
The French of Quebec are the strongest in opposition to 
every suggestion of annexation. As a state in the Union 
Quebec fears that it would not be able to retain an estab- 
lished church, the use of the French as the official language, 
the French law, and its present importance as the balance 
of power in Dominion politics. 

Annexation by violence is in the highest degree improb- 
able, though some of the Canadians frighten themselves 
with this bugaboo. The Republic will have no unwilling 
citizens ; no reluctant states. Indeed, those who are ready 
and anxious for admission to statehood and full citizenship 
have not found it in the northwestern territories an easy 
task to secure annexation by the most persistent effort. 

THE FUTURE OF CANADA. 

The narrow strip of settled territory along the northern 
edge of the Republic should naturally, however, in the 
course of time be united with it. So far as nearly all of 
this strip is concerned annexation would be of advantage to 



89 

both parties. All the provinces except Quebec would, 
their people desiring it, assume the character of American 
states or territories without a jar. The Republic could 
easily digest them and enjoy its meal. The case of Quebec, 
however, presents a problem. Would the province be ab- 
sorbed like Louisiana or would it remain an unrepublican, 
indigestible, health-destroying morsel in the stomach of the 
body-politic ? The half-million of French Canadians who 
have crossed the border into New England move in large 
bodies, use their own language, follow their own customs, 
and are surrounded but not absorbed by the people of the 
states. How long would it take the Republic to colonize and 
Americanize Quebec with its million and a quarter of 
French people, which has resisted all efforts to Anglicize it 
by the British, who in theory govern it, and which grows 
more and more of a French nation every day ? Would the 
Republic dare to admit to the rank of an equal with the 
states a community of unrepublican institutions and ten- 
dencies, which would not surrender them without an obsti- 
nate struggle ? 
Canada is 

A LAND OF UNREST AND DISCONTENT. 

Race is arrayed against race, religion against religion, prov- 
ince against province. The dweller on the coast and the 
northwest settler are alike injured and exasperated by the 
protective system which cuts them off from free intercourse 
with their natural markets in the United States. French- 
man and " Britisher," Roman Catholic and Protestant, fish- 
erman and farmer, are wrangling and snarling. 

In the Republic the intense heat of American nationality 
and national pride fuses to some extent diverse races. In 
Canada, where no strong common spirit of nationality can 
be said to exist, every prejudice of race and religion is kept 
alive and fostered. 

The proud thoughts of the French Canadian turn to Paris. 
The pride of the English Canadian is in London. The 



90 

thoughtful and sensitive native Canadian not of French 
descent finds no place to which he can turn for the enjoy- 
ment of pride of nationality. He is by birth an American, 
but that name and all the modern history of his continent 
and an intense nationality and national pride belong to the 
people of the great Republic to the south of him, with whom 
his interests and largely his sympathies lie, but with whom 
he may not unite politically without reproach. He feels 
that he is alienated from the tendencies and aspirations of 
the continent of his birth ; that he is merely a despised col- 
onist, a species of political outcast, like the man without a 
country, or a citizen of the District of Columbia. 

Some change will surely happen in Canada. Either the 
colonies will receive through a federation scheme representa- 
tion in the councils of the British empire, and Canada will 
thus be drawn closer to England, or the English provinces 
of the Dominion, which are gradually assimilating them- 
selves to the Republic, will be admitted to the union of 
states. The press of the Republic furnishes the exchanges 
of the Canadian press, and the tone of the latter is American 
rather than European. The process of assimilation goes on 
with satisfactory rapidity. The Dominion is being Ameri- 
canized, though it is not being annexed. In time the 
thoughts of the Canadians will turn toward annexation 
The isolation and humiliation of the colonial position will 
not be forever endurable, and the signs of the times do not 
point to relief by a grant of representation in the British 
parliament. 



91 



To Earth's Center. 



YELLOWSTONE PARK AND ITS COUNTLESS WONDERS. 



THE LAND OF GEYSERS. 



Volcanoes that Spurt Hot Water — Boiling Springs with Rain- 
bow Colors — Canons and Cataracts — Mountains of Sulphur, 
Silica and Limestone. 



From the Washington Evening Star, October 25, 1890. 

[Staff Correspondence of The Evening Star.] 

Mammoth Hot Springs, August, 1890. 
When Jules Verne once wished to give his readers a 
glimpse of the wonders of the center of the earth, he was 
compelled to send them in imagination to Iceland, to grope 
perilously in the recesses of extinct volcanoes. Nowadays 
we have changed all that. We go to Yellowstone Park, and 
the contents of the world's interior are brought to the sur- 
face and exhibited for our convenient inspection on moun- 
tain heights, more than a mile above the level of the sea. 
Here we do not descend to the world's center. It ascends 
to us. Waters steaming with the earth's internal fires issue 
here as springs, building terraces, depositing stalactites and 
stalagmites of limestone and silica, as in the remotest cor- 
ners of the deepest caves. There is here an open-air Luray 
exhibition, in which underground processes are conducted 
on the surface, at heights greater than the summit of Mt. 
Washington. There are displayed here not only reminders 
of heat dispatched from the center of the earth, but also 
specimens of the chemical products of nature's underground 
paint factory. The most brilliant colors imaginable are de- 
posited by the boiling waters. Not merely things of beauty 
are sent from below. In the geysers there is a suggestion 



92 

of the tremendous power of the forces that lurk under the 
earth's crust. A cleft in the surface of the rock and earth, a 
thousand feet deep and more than twenty miles long, into 
which a river falls, displays on its sides the vivid colors 
which indicate the work of agencies from vastly greater 
depths. Then there are mountains of evidence in volcanic 
rock of a time, geologically recent, when the earth belched 
through such vent holes as those of the geysers fire and melted 
lava instead of hot water and steam. Little patches of the 
earth's crust are turned inside out. Rumblings and roar- 
ings of the underground world affright the ear, and frequent 
messengers from it leap into the air and startle the eye. 
Uncle Sam has not been able to climb the north pole in ad- 
vance of the universe, but he can boast of getting closer and 
more convenient views of the wonders of the center of the 
the earth than any national competitor. 

I made my journey, then, to the world's interior, not b} T 
the Verne route — down a volcano shaft — but by the Northern 
Pacific railroad to Cinnabar, Mont., and thence by stage to 

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, 

the first attraction of Yellowstone Park. 

Looking from the hotel porch our group of recently-ar- 
rived tourists saw, not far distant, a white-terraced hill emit- 
ting steam from many points. In front of it and nearer to 
us was a sloping plateau, also displaying terraces and little 
clouds of steam, and from its surface a cone-shaped mound 
projected. We soon found by a scramble of inspection that 
the steam marks the site of springs ; that the white hill and 
its terraces and the plateau are calcareous deposits of the 
hot water, and that the curious mound, known as Liberty 
Cap, is composed of overlapping layers of the sediment, and 
was built up many years ago to the height of fifty-two feet 
by the overflow of water from the orifice at its top. The 
springs, of which there are more than fifty now active, are 
scattered over about 170 acres of ground. They are con- 
stantly shifting and issuing in new places, and names 



93 

change with each change of location. Cleopatra spring and 
terrace, for instance, the themes of the glowing descriptions 
of the guide book, for which we made diligent search as in 
duty bound, are found to be things of the past, dead and 
gone to decay like Cleopatra, herself. A like fate will soon 
overtake the active and attractive springs of to-day. Minute 
description of the present springs, with their present names 
and conditions, is thus discouraged. The most notable 
feature of the springs is the limestone deposit of the water, 
and the deposits are remarkable for their vast amount, for 
the curious and beautiful shapes which they assume, and 
for the vivid colors which vary the dazzling white and gray 
of the limestone. There are here three square miles of cal- 
careous deposit similar to the material of which St. Peter's 
and the principal buildings of Rome are constructed. The 
deposits, as a rule, appear as terraces, the spring issuing at 
the top of the formation, and the water flowing into lime- 
stone basins, and overflowing into another series of basins 
at a lower level, and so on to the foot of the terrace. The 
stalactite formations at the edge of the basins often extend 
in crystal many-tinted columns down to the level of the next 
series of basins and constitute the terrace front. They are 
very beautiful when recently formed and wet. The ancient 
dry formation is apt to crack and crumble. The appear- 
ance of the terraces has been aptly compared to that of a 
cataract plunging over natural shelves, which, as it falls, 
is turned" to stone. The predominant color of the deposit is 
grayish white, but other colors appear in profusion and show 
to advantage against the limestone background. The basins 
are often pink-tinted and about their borders and around 
the springs are all tints of brown, red and yellow. Peculiar 
vegetation supplies shades of green and the water itself is a 
transparent light blue. 

THE BUGABOO OF THE PARK. 

As you tiptoe through the hot water in the neighborhood 
of the springs you find yourself under the inspection of a 



94 

figure in uniform, a representative of the might and majesty 
of the United States army. He is there primarily and theo- 
retically to keep you from breaking and stealing the " for- 
mation," acts against which you are warned at every step by 
" Keep of the grass " placards. Incidentally he serves (for 
a consideration) as guide. The first shock of discovery that 
you have a military keeper soon passes, and in a little while 
you pay no more attention to a soldier than to a new spring. 
Familiarity breeds at least lack of interest and lack of fear. 
Soldiers pop up everywhere about the sights of the park. 
They are omnipresent reminders that Uncle Sam through 
his military arm is in active control of things. By law the 
Secretary of Interior has exclusive charge of the 3,575 
square miles of the park, which have been reserved from 
settlement by Congress, and is required to make regulations 
for the protection of the natural curiosities and wonders 
contained in it. But Congress several years ago cut off the 
appropriation for a superintendent and assistants to care for 
the park, and the work of carrying out the regulations of 
the Secretary has been added to the diversified duties of the 
army. In the absence of fighting to be done the Govern- 
ment offers its men of war a wide range of employment, 
from blacking an officer's boots to municipal government of 
the District, and including the position of policeman and 
guide in the Yellowstone. There is then a mixture of civil 
and military in the management of the park, just as there 
is in the government of the District of Columbia. Its gov- 
ernment is that of a military reservation nominally under 
civil control, a sort of " double-faced gentleman," like Janus. 

PLANNING THE CAMrAIGN. 

The evening of the first day in the Yellowstone is spent in 
a struggle for advantage in securing places in the vehicles 
which are to make the round trip of the park. The seats in 
the stage or surrey in which you leave the hotel in the morn- 
ing will probably be retained by you through the rest of 
your journey. Consequently it is a matter of great import- 



95 

ance to become a member of an agreeable party, if your own 
party is not sufficiently large to fill one of the vehicles. So 
all through the evening you are weighing in the balance 
your fellow passengers and being weighed by them in 
turn. The opinionated and quarrelsome individual, the 
traveled " hog," the invalid, the incorrigible punster, the 
party with spoiled and whining children are all noted, and 
avoided. At this time, too, we received the appalling in- 
formation that we would come in contact with a Raymond 
excursion, and we took our first lesson in regard to the nuis- 
ances of the park. We learned that these are dust, mos- 
quitoes, rain, bad water, and — worst of all, ranking with the 
plague of Egyptian locusts or American grasshoppers — Ray- 
mond excursions. Yes, the inoffensive-looking excursionist, 
who travels where the manager listeth and who knows not 
whence he cometh or whither he goeth, jammed in the 
park hotels and stages and apparently deserving sympathy 
instead of reproach, is in the Yellowstone an unmitigated nuis- 
ance. The hotels, except those at the Hot Springs and the 
Canon, are small, rattletrap affairs. When one of these 
large excursions, with quarters engaged in advance, goes 
sweeping through the Yellowstone, it is not only wretchedly 
housed itself, but it absolutely renders the park uninhabit- 
able for the small private parties and individual travelers. 
By permitting them to enter, with its hotel accommodations 
in their present condition, the park association is discourag- 
ing all other travel and is killing the goose that lays the 
golden egg. One of these parties overtook us on our second 
day in the park, as predicted, and we were engaged in dodg- 
ing it, with inconvenience to ourselves, during our whole 
trip. Until the association has been compelled to erect suit- 
able hotels at all the necessary points the Northern Pacific 
ticket offices and stations, at least at the ends of the line 
where book tickets for the round trip of the park are sold, 
ought to be placarded with words of warning whenever 
an excursion party is about to enter the Yellowstone. Pro- 
hibitory placards directing you not to tread upon the forma- 



96 



tion, and not to break or injure the formation, and not to 
leave your camp-fires burning, and not to do this, that and 
the other thing stare you in the face at every turn. To the 
list should be added one after this fashion : 



Beware ! ! Keep out of the park ! ! 
Excursionists in possession ! 



Next morning we started for the geysers. I was in a two- 
seated vehicle carrying three persons besides the driver. 
We came last in the procession of vehicles, a position which 
we retained and which we utilized to enable us to linger at 
points of interest without delaying our fellow travelers. The 
day was one of stage riding, with sufficient sideshows to 
make the trip an interesting one. Glimpses of the top of 
the mountains, which constitute the rocky wall of the park, 
the yellow cliffs of Golden Gate, the black and (in places) 
glistening walls of volcanic glass that make up Obsidian 
cliff, little cataracts like Rustic falls, the beaver dams and 
houses of Beaver lake, the springs and second-rate geysers 
of the Norris basin, which lie near the road, contributed to 
the interest of the day's sight-seeing. The most notable sell 
of the day was the guide book's wonderful roadway of ob- 
sidian, " the only piece of glass road in the world." Visions 
of treading upon a New Jerusalem style of pavement were 
dispelled by a sight of the road, which on the surface is un- 
mistakable dirt, with no visible points of superiority over 
any other road. What lies beneath the surface as the foun- 
dation of the road, whether volcanic glass, gold ore or gravel, 
deponents say not and care not. The journey was also en- 
livened by the " irrepressible conflict " between the drivers 
and certain tourists. Hostilities on the part of the latter 
consisted in firing countless " fool questions " at the drivers, 
in delaying the vehicles at each supposed point of interest 
and in writing denunciatory letters to the newspapers after 
the trip. The drivers got even by occasionally starting their 



97 

horses with unusual promptness if a geyser appeared to be 
about to play, and by way of further retaliation they have 
named a geyser " The Tourist," which does nothing but 
growl and sputter. Late in the afternoon we arrived at 
Lower Geyser basin. We stopped there to spend the night 
mainly, it appeared, because the hotel had been built there. 
There seemed to be no other reason for tarrying at this 
point instead of pushing on to Fountain or Excelsior geyser, 
where there was something to see. We invited rheumatism 
and strained our eyes standing on and gazing from the 
damp banks of the Firehole river at alleged beavers, which, 
it appears, are accustomed to come out into the river to feed 
just when it gets too dark to see them. Then, having ex- 
hausted the sights, we went to bed. 

ON TO THE GEYSERS. 

The next day was geyser day. The program presented a 
series of wonderful sights from early in the morning until 
late at night. The first geyser which we saw was the Foun- 
tain, and because it was the first we were much impressed 
by its eruption. Its water column when it is spouting is 
fountain-like and pleasing in shape, but it does not play to 
any great height. Near it are the paint pots, an exhibit of 
the results when the hot water of the park forces its way to 
the surface through earth instead of rock. A basin forty by 
sixty feet, like that of a spring, is filled with a throbbing 
mass of mud. It is like the most agitated and threatening 
of quicksands. Mud waves of various shapes surge up and 
fall back with a plop-plop, plunkety-plunk accompaniment. 
At one point in the basin the mud rim is broken, and num- 
erous mud cones, a foot or two in height, have been formed. 
The mud at this point is red, pink and gra} r , and from this 
fact the name paint pots is derived. Some of the cones be- 
long to miniature mud geysers, which play to the height of 
several feet. 



98 
Soon we were in sight of the Excelsior geyser, 

THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD. 

Its crater is a vast pit, 400 feet long by 250 feet broad. 
It is constantly filled within eighteen or twenty feet of the 
surface with water, boiling as in a devil's caldron and hid- 
ing nearly all of the opening with steam. In its full erup- 
tion an immense volume of water rises from a hundred to 
three hundred feet in the air, carrying with it masses of the 
rock formation, and falling doubles the apparent volume of 
the Firehole river, which flows close at hand. In walking 
to the overhanging edge of its crater the crust sounds hollow 
to the tread, a grumbling and threatening murmur is heard, 
sulphurous odors stifle and steam blinds the observer. The 
place is terrifying, and if one found himself in it alone on 
the occasion of his first visit he would be apt to take to his 
heels. Sustained by the presence of fellow sight-seers and 
unconscious of the danger I worked to the very edge of the 
crater. As the steam blew away momentarily from the 
other side of the crater I saw that the overhanging edge was 
a mere crust, undermined by the boiling water, and ready 
to fall into the caldron at any moment. I stood not upon 
the order of my going, but went away at once. The site of 
the Excelsior is aptly termed " Hell's Half Acre." The 
geyser evidently broke through the earth's crust suddenly 
and violently. It has no cone, and in this respect it re- 
sembles the great geyser of Iceland, from which the name 
geyser, meaning gusher or rager, is derived, and which when 
it was thought to be the only one in existence was visited by 
scientific men from all parts of the world. The absence of 
a cone is viewed as an indication of tender youth in geysers. 
Excelsior is therefore considered as the giant infant among 
the great geysers of the Yellowstone, and those in the upper 
basin of the park, with their remarkable cones, rank as the 
oldest in the world. Hell's Half Acre displays the beautiful 
as well as terrible. Not far from the crater of the geyser, 
and likely before many years to become part of the geyser's 



99 

basin through the rapid undermining and tumbling in of 
the separating formation, are Turquois spring and Prismatic 
lake, the latter being the largest and most beautiful spring 
in the park. The siliceous deposit from the geyser's waters 
and connected springs does not form so rapidly or so pro- 
fusely as the calcareous deposit of the mammoth hot springs, 
but resembles it when formed, and is characterized by the 
same beautiful color. The water of Prismatic lake is blue 
or green, according to its depth. About the borders are 
yellows, reds, purples, browns and grays. The lake of many 
colors gleams like a jewel in its grayish-white setting of silica 
deposit. Reluctantly leaving the wonders of this spot we 
soon found ourselves driving among the bewildering pro- 
fusion of geysers and springs in the upper basin, and to our 
stopping place at the hotel. Here, within the space of a few 
miles, is 

THE MOST WONDERFUL GEYSER EXHIBIT 

in the world. There are here more great geysers, that is, 
geysers spouting over 100 feet in height than are elsewhere 
collected. The heat which displays itself is that of the 
earth's center, increased by that which is produced by me- 
chanical action in the rocks of the region and that which 
belongs especially to the volcanic rocks in which the springs 
are located. The geysers are pronounced by the scientists 
to be volcanoes in the last stage of development — water vol- 
canoes, so to speak. The evidences of the close connection 
between volcanoes and geysers are overwhelming. The for- 
mer usually grow into the latter, but the reverse process has 
taken place, and it is recorded that not many years ago the 
great geyser of Iceland for a considerable period erupted hot 
smoke and ashes instead of water. The volcano which 
spouts lava is so dangerous to life while in eruption that its 
wonders are comparatively inaccessible. The water volcano, 
though displaying a terrible power, can be safely studied 
while in action. 



100 

For a mile along the Firehole river and on both sides of 
it rise a succession of mounds of geyserite, dotted with boil- 
ing springs and the craters of ge} r sers, all steaming vigor- 
ously, and the latter at intervals erupting. Each one of the 
twenty-six notable upper basin geysers has a peculiar and 
distinctive crater, or a characteristic noise or appearance in 
action, which gives it a name. Frequently the formations 
about the craters are tinted with delicate colors, and they 
assume various shapes from the cone and cylinder to the 
turreted castle. In a few cases the geyser has no crater de- 
posit at all. Some of the geysers work quietly, with only a 
swishing, rushing sound. Others roar and shake the ground. 
There is an infinite variety in the different forms of geyser 
exhibit. 

The patriarch of the collection is the Castle, which has 
been depositing geyserite for so many centuries that it has 
built for itself a castle-shaped structure with a base 100 feet 
in diameter. This deposit is very hard, as one of our party, 
who climbed to the orifice of the cone and losing footing, 
slipped down a silica toboggan slide to the bottom, can feel- 
ingly testify. There is little that is reliable in the printed 
statements concerning the intervals of eruption, height of 
column, &c, in these geysers. The quantity of water thrown 
out, the height to which the column rises, and the length of 
the exhibit vary greatly in different eruptions of the same 
geyser. Old Faithful and a few of the minor geysers ob- 
serve a satisfactory regularity in their intervals of display, 
and their eruptions are the only ones seen by many visitors 
to the park. Old Faithful, which throws a fine column of 
water between 100 and 200 feet into the air at intervals of 
about an hour, stands near to the hotel, and furnishes as 
good an opportunity for the study of geysers and gej^serite 
as any in the world. But the greatest interest is taken by 
visitors in the geysers spouting a greater volume of water 
with longer and more irregular intervals if they are lucky 
enough to get sight of these rarer eruptions. 



101 

ERUPTION OP THE GIANT. 

After dinner we had walked from the hotel past Old Faith- 
ful, across the Firehole river, and were leisurely inspecting 
the cones and craters and springs of " geyser hill," a great 
mass of deposit covering over twenty acres, where 
many of the principal geysers are collected. Suddenly we 
saw on the other side of the river and some distance from 
us a column of water rising high in the air. Then fol- 
lowed a breathless race to the place of the eruption. It was 
the Giant geyser, which is credited with spouting higher 
than any other in the upper basin, in full action, a spectacle 
of comparatively rare occurrence. We passed a dozen craters 
and springs in our rush toward the Giant, and one of the 
geysers — the Oblong — was actually in eruption ; but we 
were not to be diverted from the more imposing spectacle. 
From the Giant's cone, which is shaped like an immense 
tree stump decayed and broken away at one side, a column 
of water spurted with a mingled hissing and roaring 200 
feet in the air, and, falling back, poured over the terrace of 
deposit which serves as a platform for the crater, and swelled 
and heated the Firehole river. Clouds of steam sent out by 
the hot water rose above the geyser's column, until to one 
looking from the foot of the geyser it seemed to mingle with 
the clouds and fill the sky. Portions of the column appeared 
to receive in turn special impetus and shot out in jets into 
the sunlight and fell in a brilliant spray of sparkling, scald- 
ing drops. The eruption lasted for about an hour. 

On the side of the great platform of geyser deposit which 
was farthest from the river the spectators were collected. 
The number increased as the eruption progressed. Every 
few minutes there would be fresh arrivals in a state of high 
excitement. It was on this occasion that I first fully ap- 
preciated the omnipresence of the camera and the kodak. 
Every other man, woman and child seemed to be taking a 
view or series of views of the eruption. Here a veteran 
with a tripod was philosophically fixing the scene from the 



102 

best point of view. Here a youngster, breathless with run- 
ning and excitement, was dancing around the geyser, or as 
far around as he could get, and snapping a kodak at short 
intervals. Nobody but the photographer who develops his 
films will know exactly how many views he placed upon 
the same film, or how many snaps were made with the cap 
shutting out the view altogether. 

Kodak fiends revel in the park. They gather about the 
site of an expected eruption and train their weapons upon 
it and lie in wait for it just as the festive potato bug places 
himself in position to grapple the plant as it issues from the 
ground. The most modest and retiring geyser is not per- 
mitted to spout unseen and unsnapped. But the principal 
beauty of the park, the coloring of geyserite and limestone, 
cannot be photographed ; the blinding glare of the sun re- 
flected from the deposit plays havoc with view-taking, and 
the great geysers wet the kodak with steam and laugh to 
scorn the attempt to reproduce their majestic but vague and 
constantly changing outlines. But what cares the kodakist ? 
Everywhere he goes merrily snapping, too often careless and 
unappreciative of the wonders and beauties of the park ex- 
cept as they furnish targets for his shooting. When others 
are feasting their eyes on the grand and attractive he rushes 
about in absorbing search for a snap-shot point of view, and 
his thoughts instead of being moved with wonder and ad- 
miration run evermore in this groove : Remove cap, snap, 
pull string, turn key, snap, pull string, turn key, snap, pull 
string, turn key, and so on to infinity. 

The guide book is not more misleading in its confident 
assurances concerning the intervals and duration and height 
of eruption of the greater number of the geysers than it is 
in its information concerning those which are active. It 
gives vivid descriptions of a number which have 

GONE OUT OF BUSINESS 

for a long time and possibly permanently. There is the Bee 
Hive, for instance, which is described as one of the most 



103 

beautiful in the upper basin, and is, of course, one of the first 
objects of search for the eager tourist. Many doses of soap 
thrown into its crater to bring on a quick eruption have 
after performing their purpose of temporarily stimulation, 
disabled the geyser permanently to all appearances. For a 
long time it has not played at all, resisting all the blandish- 
ments of soap, and it is now of no use to anybody unless a 
shaft can be sunk into it in order that it may be worked as 
a soap mine. There are geysers in the basin which are in 
the habit of putting on all the symptoms of an intention to 
erupt, and then of subsiding, to the disappointment and in- 
dignation of the expectant spectator. The tourist is hereby 
warned especially against the (so-called) Splendid geyser, 
around which we stood for an hour, momentarity expecting 
an eruption. The tourists who were to leave the upper 
basin that afternoon were fairly dragged from the spot by 
their drivers in an agony of disappointment with their eyes 
fixed upon the point where every minute Splendid was ex- 
pected to rise into the air. But he boiled and gurgled and 
sputtered and surged up for half an hour afterward, and 
then failed to erupt after all. The principal photograph of 
this geyser is entitled " Waiting for Splendid to Erupt," and 
we can now appreciate the appropriateness of the selection 
of this view by the park photographer. In the evening we 
enjoyed a delightful drive to some of the more remote of the 
springs and geysers of the upper basin. We saw a highly 
ornamented and gigantic geyserite punch bowl and Speci- 
men lake, so called, the overflowings of a wonderful spring 
called Black Sand basin. This water, heavily charged with 
deposits, has spread over acres of ground not only the gray 
of the geyserite, but the most brilliant coloring in yellows 
and reds and in delicate pink, saffron and green. The de- 
posit has formed about the roots of trees, around which the 
hot water has washed, and has been taken up into their 
trunks, and as the trees stand about the edge of the formation 
white and dead, or uprooted, fallen and twisted, they look 



104 

like the skeletons of some of Dore's monsters. In driving 
over the edge of the formation it seemed as if the vehicles were 
passing through snow and slush. The snow effect was 
heightened when later the moon came out, and the white- 
ness of craters and mounds of geyserite everywhere readity 
suggested a winter sleigh ride. There was something ghostly 
and ghastly in the desolation and peculiar whiteness of the 
scene. Rider Haggard could well make this the scene of a 
weird and imagination-straining story, entitled, .let us say, 
" The Land of the White Death." Our drive carried us to 
the Biscuit basin, where the deposit takes the shape of 
masses of hard-baked olive-green biscuit, and where, with 
other curious things, we saw a spring in which at intervals 
of a minute a large, silvery bubble rose to the surface from 
unknown depths, a very mild eruption viewing the spring 
as a geyser. Returning to the hotel we walked to the woods 
not far distant and watched the operation of feeding a small 
black bear, which two of the hotel men have induced to 
come from his den in the forest at night to sup on the fresh 
meat which they provide. The park is something of a game 
preserve, as hunting in it is forbidden. There are more 
than a hundred buffaloes in the park, and they are occa- 
sionally seen at the suggestion of the stage drivers by the 
more imaginative of the tourists. The beaver flourishes in 
the water and the bear, moose, elk, antelope, panther and 
other animals in the woods. The spectacle of Old Faithful 
by moonlight — and a wonderful sight it was — and the boil- 
ing of some eggs as souvenirs in one of the hot springs, com- 
pleted the day's program. 

Surely a greater variety of the terrible, the beautiful, the 
wonderful and the curious was never elsewhere crowded into 
so small a space as in the upper geyser basin of the Yellow- 
stone. Here we have something really uncanny and satis- 
fying. We are fairly in touch with the center of the earth 
at last. 



105 



SATANIC SUGGESTIONS OF THE YELLOWSTONE. 

Those who have furnished nomenclature to Yellowstone 
Park have recognized his satanic majesty as a dominant 
spirit within its borders. Near the entrance to the park 
stands the Devil's Slide. His kitchen, his frying pan and 
his well, which are met in succession, indicate that he is 
quite at home here. At Hot Springs the " Devil's Thumb " 
is visible and conspicuous. The site of the largest geyser is 
called " Hell's Half Acre," and the whole region is formally 
turned over to infernal possession by its designation as 
" Coulter's Hell," the name first given to the park. In its 
sulphurous fumes, its diabolic noises, its hissings, boilings 
and hollow rumblings, its hoodoo formations, its appearance 
of desolation and death, and in its pre-eminent claims to be 
the place where humanity is kept in hot water, it does possess 
some infernal characteristics. It is, however, a land of white- 
ness instead of blackness, and the devil, if he gives color to 
his park, is evidently not so black as he is painted. 

There are some indications that his satanic majesty has im- 
pressed himself not only upon the names and surface of the 
park, but that his influence is felt in the moral atmosphere. 
At any rate the tourist is apt to be seized, I am told, on first 
entering this uncanny region, with an irresistible desire to 
lie like sixty about wonders that have been visible to him 
and not to his companions, and to steal all the specimens 
that he can lay hands upon. It is certain, in spite of 
posted warnings and threats, the awful menace of the might 
of the United States army and the absence of authoritative 
notice of any suspension of the eighth commandment in the 
park, that deacons and Sunday-school teachers, old and 
young, male and female, of probity and piety at home, slink 
through the park with pockets and specimen bags illegally 
stuffed, uneasy in conscience and fearful of detection, but 
gloating over their pilfered treasures with an unholy joy 
that is fearful to contemplate. The desperate specimen thief 
gets about as much real enjoyment from the park as the 



106 

confirmed kodak fiend. In most cases he takes an unneces- 
sary load upon his conscience. While the rule against re- 
moving specimens is sweeping, practically it is only the 
breaking of the formation, and especially of such as is beau- 
tiful and conspicuous, that is harshly considered and treated. 
Nearly all of the supposed treasures concealed by the speci- 
men seeker are of no consequence in the eyes of the soldier 
on guard. In spite of the fact that the humiliation of ex- 
pulsion from the park is the only punishment which the 
authorities are able to inflict upon the detected specimen 
thief, there is comparatively little of the worst sort of vandal- 
ism practiced now. The most prominent and beautiful of 
the formations are reasonably well guarded, though they 
bear in many places traces of the period of unprotection, 
when the hammer was freely applied to them with disas- 
trous effect. Great pieces have been chopped as with an axe 
from the crater formations of some of the conspicuous geysers 
of the upper basin. Where such inroads have been made 
by vandals upon this hard deposit the mutilation of the 
more delicate formations may be imagined. 

In leaving the upper geyser basin we abandoned the rich- 
est treasures of specimens and the most vigilant soldier- 
policemen, for we 

HEADED FOR THE CANON, 

and its attractions are inaccessible and immovable, even for 
the great American vandal. We arrived at the canon in 
the afternoon and, according to the regular schedule, were to 
leave the next morning. Those who stay at this point only 
the scheduled period will save time by leaving their vehicles 
where the road approaches nearest to the upper fall of the 
Yellowstone, permitting the vehicles to go on with the bag- 
gage to the hotel. Then after a view of the upper fall a 
short walk brings them to the brink of the lower fall. 
Views of the canon from Inspiration Point and Point Look- 
out may be had later in the afternoon or early the next 



107 

morning before the starting of the caravan for Mammoth 
Hot Springs. 

The view from the brink of the lower fall is both impres- 
sive and disappointing. The spectacle of the river, narrowed 
to one-third its width, foaming and thundering over the 
rocks here to its fall of 360 feet, and of the vast crag-lined 
cleft into which it leaps, quickens one's breathing and 
causes one to hold tightly with a feeling of physical insig- 
nificance to the overhanging wooden platform upon which 
he stands. But from this point of view the coloring of the 
canon walls is not so vivid as the imagination has pictured 
it. From Inspiration Point, however, the expected colors 
are seen as brilliant as in Moran's paintings, but far more 
delicate and more beautifully blended. The trip along the 
canon's edge to Point Lookout and Inspiration Point is 
made most conveniently on horseback, unless the visitor is 
a good walker. From Point Lookout and a great red rock 
down the side of the canon and under this Point, to which 
one can with an effort scramble, the best view of the lower 
fall is had. 

THE SCENE AT INSPIRATION POINT. 

Inspiration Point is three miles from the hotel. The 
canon seen from this point shares with Niagara and the 
Yosemite the merit of surpassing the most gushing descrip- 
tions. The scene may be suggested, but not described or 
pictured. The canon is here about a thousand feet deep. 
Looking up it toward the falls the most impressive view is 
secured. Turreted projections from the canon wall obstruct 
the view of the fall, so that only the white band of its east- 
ern edge is visible below the green of the distant wooded 
mountain tops which form the remote background of the 
picture. The east wall of the canon is of precipitous rock, 
more subdued in coloring than the other side. Its greenish 
yellows, browns and reds are comparatively sober. The 
west wall is easier in its slope. Down its surface extend 
great slides, where undermining springs have issued, and 



108 

jutting out from it and extending in places from the very- 
brink of the canon to the water's edge are pinnacled ridges 
of rock rising occasionally to the height and appearance of 
castle ruins. The most brilliant and varied colors are seen 
in the slides, and the morning sun develops them most 
vividly. One of the slides on the west side near Inspiration 
Point is especially rich in coloring. First, pushing down 
the slope of the wall from the canon's brink, is the green of 
the pine trees ; then come masses of yellow gray, blue gray, 
old pink, cream, light terra cotta, delicate golden brown, 
lemon yellow, old rose, brilliant cream, white shading into 
cream yellow, vermillion and patches and streaks of delicate 
gray green, sky blue, lavender, moss green and Indian red 
in an occasional rock, until at the bottom the green and 
white of the foaming river are reached. The water as it 
falls, and as it twists and curves between and beats against 
its rocky walls, now broadening, now contracting, sends up 
to the ear a murmur that closer at hand becomes a roar. 
Looking down the canon from Inspiration Point the walls 
are less precipitous and seem not to be so high as on the 
other side. Pine trees extend in places nearly to the water's 
edge, so that green is a predominating color, and the river 
stretches out for a long distance before the eye like a twisted 
green and white ribbon. The steam arising from springs 
and small geysers in the canon walls suggests the cause of 
the vivid coloring. Hot water from the earth's center with 
its chemical deposits has painted here on a grand scale the 
decorations which on the borders of the springs and geyser 
craters it has painted on a small scale. 

When means of conveniently reaching the bottom of the 
canon have been provided, as they surely will very soon, a 
new springs region will be open to public exploration and 
enjoyment. The tourist can then feel and tread upon 
the miles of brilliant surface, and scald himself in the 
springs and little geysers that are seen from the canon's 
brink steaming far below. 



109 

Near Inspiration Point there is a great granite boulder, 
which, with a few others of like formation scattered through 
this region, indicates that the park, not to lack any natural 
wonder, at one time boasted a mighty glacier, which has 
joined with water, wind and frost to carve the marvelous 
sculpturing of the canon's walls. 

The canon is the last great show of the park, and accord- 
ing to the popular verdict it is the greatest. 

At this point we left the vehicle in which we had started 
from the springs and it went on without us in accordance 
with its regular schedule. We found it impossible to see 
even hastily and superficially the marvels of the canon in 
the few hours of daylight which the stage schedule assigned 
to this place, so we remained an extra day and came on by 
next day's caravan. 

We arrived at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel late in 
the afternoon and were compelled to remain there until the 
next afternoon. 

KILLING TIME. 

The principal occupation of the tourists during this interval 
was the swapping of geyser stories (which are several sizes 
larger than fish stories), objurgating the eccentricities of the 
transportation schedule, and advising the incoming travelers 
of the strong points of the park. The young lady, for in- 
stance, who missed the eruption of the Giant geyser by friv- 
olously flirting away her time in the vicinity of the spring 
called " Solitar}'," waxed enthusiastic : " Oh, the park is 
just charming. You see the cunningest little beavers at the 
lower basin and feed a real bear at the upper basin, and you 
can ride on a pony at the canon that is too cute for any- 
thing ! " 

Then and there the returned specimen collector inflamed 
the desires of the newcomer with secret views of her acqui- 
sitions and gave advice in roguery : " Don't be afraid of the 
soldiers and drivers. Why, don't you know one soldier who 
caught me with a handkerchief full of pieces of the loveliest 



110 

colored petrified wood (the colors rubbed off afterward) said 
that we might have all we wanted of that, only not to break 
the formation, and a driver that I had been hiding my speci- 
mens from actually pointed out the most beautiful pink for- 
mation in a spring and said to me : ' See those specimens 
in that spring, Miss ! They are soft and break off easily. 
And another thing, the water is cold and won't burn your 
hand.' And then he turned his back on me and showed 
the rest of the party another spring for full two minutes. 
Now, could you expect anything nicer than that ? " 

In a corner of the hotel office a little group of male van- 
dals collected and one of the number in husky, mysterious 
tones broached the great Liberty Cap conspiracy. " You 
see," he said, " if you are caught stealing specimens, no 
matter how rare and valuable, all the soldier can do is to 
take the specimens from you and put you out of the park. 
The soldier, of course, can't put the broken formation back 
again, and I know because I've tried it, that if you go about 
it in the right way you can get the soldiers to let you have 
these confiscated specimens. Now, what's the matter with 
taking a hammer and ladder to-night, some of 3 r ou fellows, 
and breaking the peak off of Liberty Cap ? If you don't 
get caught you have a prize, and if you do get caught you're 
all right, anyway, for you've been all through the park and 
are ready to be sent out, and I'll get the specimen from the 
soldier and divide with you. What d'yer say ? " 

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS. 

The characteristic and unsurpassable features of the park 
are the geysers, and the brilliant work of hot water as a 
decorator, whether displayed in canon or spring deposits. 

It has mountain views, but the grand scenery is confined 
to a few portions of the park. 

It makes a great display of water in cataract as well as in 
geyser, in the majesty of falling as well as rising, but its 
waterfalls are far surpassed in height by Yosemite and in 
volume by Niagara. 



111 

It has a wonderful canon, but it is far from being so deep 
and precipitous as either the Yosemite, Colorado or Arkansas. 
There are other lakes more wonderful and beautiful than 
the Yellowstone. There are more interesting petrified trees 
than those of the park, as in the chalcedony forests of 
Arizona. There are erosions more fantastic in shape than 
the Hoodoos in the Garden of the Gods and Mineral Park, 
Colorado. 

But in no single region is there so great a variety of at- 
tractions Nowhere else in the world are there great geysers 
so numerous, so ancient and so remarkable in deposits. 
And nowhere else is there so varied and vivid a display of 
natural colors, whether in connection with the springs and 
geysers or in the decoration which gives to the canon walls 
their wonderful beauty and distinguishes them from all 
other cliffs. 



113 



Toward the Pole. 



IN A WEIRD LAND, WHERE THE SUMMER SUN 
NEVER SETS. 



CLIMBING NORTH CAPE. 

Norzvay' s Scenery — Glaciers and Snow-Capped Mountains — The 
World's Most Northern Town and Cathedral — The Gulf 
Stream in Arctic Waters — Relics of the Vikings. 

From the Washington Evening Star, October 31, 1891. 

[Staff Correspondence of The Evening Star.] 

In travel, as in all things else, the American delights to 
rush to extremes. He soon traverses the globe's most fre- 
quented paths and sighs for fresh worlds to hurry over. He 
yearns to see equatorial Africa like Stanley or Greenland's 
icy mountains like Peary, and his ambition might be tem- 
porarily gratified if he could only climb the pole. But the 
spirit of adventure in the average American is modified by 
his desire to accomplish his explorations quickly and com- 
fortably. He has the ancient Athenian longing for " some 
new thing," but he does not yearn particularly for the halo 
of scientific martyrdom. He would prefer to do Africa with 
Jules Verne in a delightful tour of " Five Weeks in a Bal- 
loon" rather than fight and starve wit li Stanley. Instead 
of cutting through Arctic ice with polar explorers, fortified 
against freezing and sustained for hard labor by a regular 
diet of plain blubber, varied by an occasional tallow candle 
or a ragout of old shoes, he prefers to follow the Gulf stream 
to the North Cape of Norway and to do his polar explora- 
tion in all the comforts of a modern tourist steamer. 



114 

These facts and tendencies being remembered, it is easy 
to understand how it happened that Americans constituted 
the bulk of the passengers on the Neptun, which steamed 
on July 10, from Bergen, Norway, for the North Cape. 
With the daring band of fellow polar explorers collected on 
this steamer I penetrated far into the Arctic zone — without 
sacrificing in the least the conveniences of civilized life. 

TOWARD THE POLE. 

Our starting point was several degrees farther north than 
Sitka in Alaska, north of Labrador, in line with the south- 
ernmost point of Greenland, and within a week we traveled 
northeast along the Norway coast for a thousand miles, past 
the Arctic circle, far past Iceland, past the latitudes of a large 
majority of the international circumpolar stations, past the 
farthest northern points reached by some of the early ex- 
plorers, and in steaming out into the sea beyond North Cape 
to round that point we reached the latitude where, north of 
Arctic Alaska, the Jeannette was frozen in the ice in Septem- 
ber, 1879, a few degrees south of the point where that vessel 
was crushed, and we approached close to the latitude of the 
place west of Greenland where Peary recently snapped the 
bone of his leg as his steamer forced its way through the 
ice. We followed the west coast of Norway as Peary fol- 
lowed the west coast of Greenland. But he traversed waters 
filled with countless icebergs when not frozen in solid pack, 
and skirted a barren, forbidding land, covered by an eternal 
ice-cap. We sailed over waters that are always free from 
ice, past towns and fjords or bays with peopled shores, as 
well as the grand scenery of hospitable Norway. 

FOLLOWING THE GULF STREAM. 

The Gulf stream renders possible polar travel of this kind. 
Crossing from our shores it bathes the west coast of Norway, 
and the fjords fully subjected to its genial influence never 
freeze, though in latitudes which, on our coast, disclose bays 



115 

locked in ice for most of the year. The temperature here is 
warmer by twenty degrees than in other localities in the 
same degrees of latitude. When the great scheme is per- 
fected of cutting through Bering straits our Pacific current 
which corresponds to the gulf stream will not only vastly 
improve the climate of northern Alaska, but melt a way for 
us far up toward the pole. But until this comprehen- 
sive public improvement is effected by the future A. R. 
Shepherd of Alaska, we who take things easily must consent 
to follow the Norway coast into the Arctic region, satisfying 
the patriotic sentiment by the reflection that our America 
sends across to northern Europe the warm and vivifying 
current which renders this bleak shore inhabitable, causing 
these waters to become an Arctic thoroughfare and bestowing 
as an appropriate gift from the new world to the old health- 
ful, wholesome and invigorating influences, physically as 
well as mentally and morally. 

From picturesquely situated Bergen, with its curious and 
interesting fish market, we visited a series of coast towns, 
each with some characteristic attraction, including Trond- 
jhem, with the most northern cathedral of the world, in 
which the Scandinavian kings are crowned, a building full 
of interest to the antiquarian, the architect and student of 
history, and Hammerfest, Dearly up to the North Cape, " the 
most northern town of the world," with postal and telegraph 
facilities. The coast, which we followed, is a high plateau, 
sloping precipitously to the sea, descending gradually inland, 
deeply indented by a thousand bays or fjords and fringed by 
a succession of countless mountainous islands. The steamer 
passes between the islands and the precipitous shore, and 
varied island and mountain scenery, in irregular shapes, 
glaciers and snow-capped heights, is enjoyed from whichever 
side of the vessel the view is taken. These fjords, the most 
wonderful bays in the world, are deep ? narrow crevices, 
deeper often than the ocean outside, in places more than 
three-fourths of a mile in depth, which run far inland to the 
very bases of the snow mountains whose tops we see, and 



116 

from them the vikings issued in days of old to prey upon 
our English forefathers, and to engraft themselves upon the 
English stock, not only by direct settlement, but also by 
founding Normandy and through the Norman conquest. 
They also incidentally founded Iceland and discovered 
America several centuries before Columbus. It would be 
nominally treasonable to the District called Columbia, and 
would certainly be treacherous to Chicago until after 1893, 
to minimize Columbus by dwelling upon Vinland and the 
early explorations of the Northmen, so I will touch upon 
this point but lightly. Ships which in shape retain the 
lines of the viking vessels sail along the coast of Norway to- 
day. Old vessels buried with their viking owners have been 
dug up along the coast. In Christiania two fine specimens 
of such remains are displayed, and a model of one of them 
is in our National Museum. They are the companion ex- 
hibits to our skeleton in armor whom Longfellow addresses. 

WHERE THE SUMMER SUN NEVER SETS. 

The most interesting and characteristic sight of Arctic 
travel is, of course, the midnight sun. It is visible north of 
the Arctic circle, 66 degrees 30 minutes. From the North 
Cape the full disk is seen from May 13 to July 31, for a 
longer time as the pole is approached, for a shorter time as 
the spectator nears the Arctic circle. But while the sun 
shines for the whole twenty-four hours it is not always seen. 
The country of fjords is a land of rains and clouds. The west 
coast of Norway is one of the rainiest places in the world. 
Over ninety inches of annual rainfall have been noted at 
some places. The people of Portland, Ore., which has a 
climate conducive to the health of ducks, are denominated 
" web-feet," for obvious reasons. The west coast Norwegians 
not only have web-feet, but a web growth between their 
fingers, and some of them, it is understood, have sprouted 
scales and rudimentary fins. Mist, fog and cloud often so 
obscure the sun in this region that tourists see little of the 
wonderful spectacle that they have traveled, perhaps, thous- 



117 

ands of miles to behold. We were fortunate, however. 
For three nights out of the five that we spent within the 
Arctic circle we saw the full sun at midnight and on the 
other two nights within a few minutes of midnight. 

Can you imagine the curious sensations and experiences 
of a part of the globe which has no summer nights, no 
darkness even at midnight, where the electric lights in your 
state-room become a useless mockery, where sleep must be 
wooed behind curtained windows, no matter what the hour ? 
In this strange land Edison and all other purvej^ors of arti- 
ficial light are at a discount. Electric light, gas, candles, 
petroleum, whale oil — all furnish a light that fails in the 
presence of the blazing sun. The orb of day is here a tyrant 
and monopolist, and even the moon and stars have no hour 
in which to assert themselves. 

THE MURDER OP WORDS. 

What a blow at the vocabulary of the people this condition 
of affairs strikes ! Whole classes of words are eliminated in 
an instant. How poveity-stricken the poet who is denied 
all allusions to " night, sable goddess ! " with her "ebon 
throne, " her " rayless majest}%" and her " leaden scepter," 
who can paint no sunset, for whom no honest watchdog bays 
the moon, who knows no fire-fly, owl or bat or other crea- 
ture of the night, who has no twilight in which, Walt Whit- 
man-like, " to loafe with his soul," who sees no daybreak, 
hears no cock-crowing at dawn, no lark, " the herald of the 
morn," and never welcomes jocund day, as it stands " tiptoe 
on the misty mountain top ! " And can there be any 
writers of Norwegian Shooting Stars in a land where no one 
can " make a night of it," where no vengeful wife can lurk 
in darkness to pounce upon her wretched husband, delayed 
at his club, and struggling in dim light with an unmanage- 
able night key? What will the novelist, the dramatist, the 
tragedian do when " deeds of darkness " become impossible, 
and the words themselves are meaningless, when the burglar 
and midnight assassin are not to be conceived and utilized, 



118 

and there is no " witching time of night when churchyards 
yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world " ? 

LIGHT AND LIFE FROM THE SUN. 

But, on the other hand, what opportunities and induce- 
ments for work and pleasure ! What a turning of night 
into day in the literal sense ! Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled : 
" But it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be 
light." The sun refrains from setting, as it did for Joshua, 
and light, which is life, full at any rate of vivifying influ- 
ences, bestows blessings upon man and the soil. The sun 
does not stand still, as at Joshua's request, in order that de- 
struction may be complete. Development, not death, is in 
the untimely rays of the Norwegian unsetting sun. Con- 
stant sunshine during the short season develops a crop in 
the thin soil which would otherwise be impossible. It is 
said that at Christiania, where the summer nights are very 
short, though the midnight sun is not visible, the barley 
ripens in exactly the same time that is required in southern 
France, continuous heat compensating for lack of intensit}\ 
So with the men, who might naturally be sun-worshipers, 
since they really live at high pressure only in this summer 
flood of sunlight, and hibernate, as it were, in the long dark- 
ness that is lighted only by the aurora. The tourist, the 
artist and the photographer find this a strange and enchanted 
land where they can see sights, sketch and photograph at 
any hour of the twenty-four. We visited some of the 
grandest scenes of the trip " at the dead of night," and 
several kodak instantaneous views were successfully taken 
b} r the light of the midnight sun. 

The Neptun's first night within the Arctic circle will never 
be forgotten by any of the passengers. There were sufficient 
clouds in the sky to render it doubtful whether at 12 o'clock 
we should be able to see the full unobscured orb, but all 
cleared away from the horizon by midnight and a round, 
red sun shone upon us through a misty or smoky atmos- 
phere and bathed the islands in the vicinity with soft, rich 



119 

light. Our cannon fired and band played. A sort of in- 
toxication of excitement swept over the steamer. The 
soberest hurrahed and sang and the lighter-minded danced 
and drank with redoubled vigor and enthusiasm. 

We saw the midnight sun to the best advantage at North 
Cape itself, 71° 10'. Early in the evening we steamed into 
the little bay to the east and south of the cape. Before 
supper the captain embarked us in row boats and set us 
ashore for the ascent. His plan was that we should climb 
to the top, see what was to be seen, and return to the steamer 
by 11 o'clock, viewing the midnight sun from the steamer's 
deck. 

ON NORTH CAPE. 

We toiled up a zigzag path, pulling ourselves up for a 
considerable part of the way by ropes fastened to iron sup- 
ports. After the climb of nearly a thousand feet we fol- 
lowed a guiding wire for a long distance across a plateau to 
the precipitous northern edge of the cape, from which we 
looked out across the open polar sea toward Spitzbergen and 
the pole. We hung over the very edge of this volcanic 
mountain, and looked down its bleak, jagged, deeply cleft 
walls of dark gray slate to the sea beneath. Visitors from 
the ship were scattered over the summit as inclination led 
them, some collecting geological specimens and flowers, 
some throwing stones over the precipice into the ocean, some 
exploring all the corners of the plateau, with the varied 
views of ocean, rocky surface and snow deposits, some drink- 
ing the champagne which was the sole article in the stock 
of an enterprising vendor, who occupied a wooden structure 
on the summit, some sketching, some gazing dreamily out 
upon the mysterious expanse of the Arctic ocean and en- 
deavoring to realize that they were within a few day's steam- 
ing distance of the pole, and some were collected in groups 
engaged as conspirators in organizing the great Neptun 

NORTH CAPE STRIKE. 

For when the time arrived at which the summit must be 
left to enable the return to the steamer to be made by 11 



120 

o'clock as planned by the captain the American passengers 
revolted. They had come several thousand miles to be on 
North Cape at midnight, they intended to remain there, the 
captain to the contrary notwithstanding, and they did. A 
few of the more timid passengers, with the fear of the cap- 
tain or a longing for supper impelling them, returned sea- 
sonably to the steamer and reported the mutiny, but the 
majority of the passengers enjoyed on North Cape the 
brightest midnight of which it is possible to conceive. 
There was absolutely nothing to suggest the night. On 
other evenings we saw the midnight sun in varied phases, 
at times nearly down to the horizon, and with the atmos- 
phere in such cloudy or misty condition that the orb pre- 
sented the angry blood-red appearance which some of the 
poets attribute to the midnight sun, and there was that 
weird duskiness in the air which suggested an eclipse or the 
fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of the time when " the light 
shall be neither clear nor dark." But there was no am- 
biguity about the sun on the night of July 17, as seen from 
North Cape. The sky was cloudless and clear and the sun 
shone bright and dazzling as on a summer afternoon in our 
latitude. There was nothing whatever strange or uncanny 
in its light. The barren and desolate scenery, and apprecia- 
tion of the lonesome isolation of the situation in this Arctic 
latitude, gave one the sensation of being an uncomfortably 
long way from home, but the sun himself was the familiar 
Washington 5 o'clock luminary. As midnight approached 
the Neptun passengers, and the passengers from another 
steamer which had anchored in the bay, gathered near the 
northernmost edge of the cape. A number of our German 
friends testified to the thrilling character of the occasion by 
collecting around the granite monument erected on the sum- 
mit in honor of King Oscar's visit in 1873, and drinking 
countless bottles of beer, which they had brought with them, 
which, in fact, accompanied them in every visit to a wonder 
of nature on the trip — the more extraordinary the sight, the 



12] 

more beer consumed. They drank and sang and placed 
empty bottles on the top of Oscar's monument and play- 
fully smashed them. And so the midnight found this 
group. The English flocked by themselves and at the 
stroke of 12 sang with great solemnity " God Save the 
Queen." The Americans were here, there and everywhere. 
Some of them marked the midnight hour by taking kodak 
snap shots at their friends and the summit scenery. There 
was a difference in time between the watches of the passen- 
gers of the two steamers, and the time according to the cham- 
pagne seller on top differed from both. So in order to be 
sure that we had seen the midnight sun on North Cape we 
stayed until all the watches had passed the hour of 12, and 
until the sun was evidently rising in the heavens, and then 
we retraced our steps. 

North Cape is not like Avernus. The descent is not easy ; 
that is, not easy to most people. A very few found it so, 
who discovered a ravine filled with hard snow, stretching 
nearly from top to bottom of the mountain, and who con- 
verted it into an impromptu toboggan slide, minus the to- 
boggan. The expert slid on their heels, making kangaroo 
jumps when necessary to preserve their balance. The inex- 
pert spent most of the period of descent on their hands and 
knees or in a position damaging to the seat of the trousers. 
" Come down fast ? I should say I did," replied one of the 
latter, backing away from his feminine questioner to welcome 
obscurity and the ministrations of needle and thread. " It 
beats sliding down splintery bannisters all to pieces." 

Returning to the steamer we found the captain in a con- 
ciliatory mood, fortified ourselves with something to eat, 
kodaked the North Cape between 1 and 2 o'clock in the 
morning, and caught cod and haddock from the Arctic ocean 
for the remainder of the sunny night. 



123 



Arctic Scenes. 



POLAR WHALES AND SEA FOWL AND COWS THAT 
EAT RAW FISH. 



A SWITZERLAND IN THE SEA. 



The Fraudulent Maelstrom — Lapps and Reindeer — Second 
Largest Glacier in Etu-ope — Sights of a Posting Tour Through 
Central Norway — European Preparations for War. 



From the Washington Evening Star, November 7, 1891. 

[Staflf Correspondence of The Evening Star.] 

The midnight sun in connection with the famous mael- 
strom off the Norway coast has caused this region to be 
credited with classic visitors. Jonas Ramus, who was a 
pastor at Christiania in 1715, published a book in which he 
calls attention to the references in Pliny and Plutarch to 
Greeks who lived in the north, where the sun was visible 
for thirty days together. Ramus identifies the maelstrom 
with Scylla and Charybdis and concludes that these northern 
Greeks were the descendants of Ulysses and his sailors, who, 
after escaping the maelstrom, lived in western Norway. I 
am not prepared to say that the experiences of Ulysses with 
the maelstrom did not give rise to the story of Scylla and 
Charybdis, but I am prepared to affirm that, if such was the 
case, Ulysses gave free vent to his imagination in the de- 
scription of his peril, and that the bow of Ulysses, which 
only he could fully bend, was a monstrous long-bow, of the 
kind drawn competitively by travelers of the Munchausen 
variety. 



124 



THE FRAUDULENT MAELSTROM. 

For there never was a greater fraud than this terrible 
maelstrom. One of the most impressive, to me, of child- 
hood's stories was that of the adventurous Johnny Wan- 
derer. I remember vividly how Johnny, who was contin- 
ually driven to fresh money-getting travels by the insatiable 
ambition of his wife for new bonnets, was returning to civi- 
lization from the north pole when he found that his ship 
refused to obey its rudder ; that it swept round and round 
in circles miles in circumference, gradually decreasing in 
size, and the frightened mariners learned that they were in 
the clutches of the maelstrom. Then followed the quicker 
and quicker rush of the circling vessel, the roar of the 
funnel-shaped abyss, the cry of the doomed and the marvel- 
ous precipitation of Johnny — who invariably landed upon 
his feet, right side up with care, no matter what the emer- 
gency — upon a soft spot at the bottom of the maelstrom pit. 
I have an ineffaceable picture in mind of the undismayed 
Johnny as he walked on the bottom of the ocean at the end 
of the maelstrom funnel, seeing a small circle of clear sky 
far above like the distant end of a tunnel, with the circling 
waters as a wall on all sides of him and the bodies of his 
companions and the fragments of his ship whirling and 
chasing about him in a ghastly merry-go-round. I remem- 
ber how the maelstrom well constantly shifted its position 
and kept Johnny moving and how this compulsory pedes- 
trianism was not without its advantages, for Johnny in 
traveling over the ocean bed collected for the gratification 
of Mrs. Wanderer the choicest of the precious stones with 
which it was covered, and how when the maelstrom broke 
up, as it was accustomed periodically to do, Johnny was 
thrown to the surface, and, with his usual luck, escaped 
with his treasure. I now discover that there is no whirl- 
pool, no conical abyss, with pit touching the ocean's bottom, 
or even starting in that direction — nothing in the world but 
a swift current which might, under certain conditions of 



125 

wind and tide, dash a vessel against the rocks, but could 
not suck under a row boat. The glory and the terror of the 
maelstrom have departed. My great whirlpool has gone to 
join Santa Glaus, William Tell, George Washington's little 
hatchet and Johnny Wanderer, himself, in the realm set 
apart for children's realities that have ceased to be. 

The Norwegian coast scenery has been aptly likened to 
that of 

A SWITZERLAND IMMERSED IN THE SEA. 

In the Lofoten Islands appear the serrated peaks, rarely seen 
on the mainland of Norway, which are conspicuous in the 
Alps. The mountain islands assume all sorts of curious 
shapes, affording ample room for exercise of the imagina- 
tion in supplying them with names. One hat-shaped moun- 
tain, called Torghatten, is pierced high up by a huge natural 
tunnel, and through it the climbing tourist after a breath- 
less scramble can see the ocean and its islands on the other 
side. 

The mountains are not near so high as those of Switzer- 
land, but when they rise, as is often the case, abruptly from 
the sea, their apparent height is very great, and the snow 
line is so low that white caps are frequent. Above the 
Arctic circle the scenery is desolate in the extreme and 
unique. There is little or no vegetation. The stunted cows 
are fed on raw fish and seaweed. They lead the same half- 
starved existence that is lived by the water-bloated skeleton 
cows sometimes seen in the St. John's river region, Florida, 
which sustain themselves after a fashion on weeds that they 
gather at the expense of a ducking from the bottom of the 
river and on the picturesque but innutritious moss which 
hangs from the trees. Birds collect by the hundred thous- 
and on some of the Arctic rock islands, and when a cannon 
is fired from the passing steamer, becloud and whiten the 
air. The fjord scenery of Norway, in the Lyngenfjord and 
the Raftsund in the Lofoten islands, for example, equals in 
grandeur any other bay or lake scenery in the known world. 



126 

There is here a Swiss wealth of glaciers, though only one of 
size is visible and approachable from the water's edge. This 
is Svartisen, the 

SECOND LARGEST GLACIER IN EUROPE 

and one of the very few in tfye Arctic regions. The largest 
is also in Norway. We visited the spur of Svartisen, which 
approaches the water's edge by broad daylight between 1 
and 4 o'clock in the morning. We picked near its edge a 
great variety of Alpine flowers and also unfamiliar forms of 
vegetation, which the botanists of the party said were not 
found in the Alps. We climbed out upon the glacier, sailors 
going ahead with axes and cutting rude steps for us, but 
we found the footing very insecure, and after some hair- 
breadth escapes returned. A part of our number took a 
boat ride on the pool formed at the glacier's foot by the 
milky stream issuing from it. This spur from Svartisen re- 
sembles somewhat the Glacier des Bossons in the Chamounix 
in size, angle of descent and purity of the ice. The body of 
the glacier lies on a high plateau, like a great ice cap, and 
is thirty-five miles long and ten miles wide. 

WHERE THE WHALE LIVES AND DIES. 

In addition to its striking scenery northern Norway pos- 
sesses some objects and places which appeal powerfully to 
other senses than that of sight. It boasts magnificent views, 
excels in most northern towns and cathedrals, exhibits an 
unequaled show in the midnight sun and makes still another 
world-beating record by supplying in a whale-trying estab- 
lishment which we visited at Ingo the most powerful smell 
that can assail the nostrils of man. It is of the kind that 
permeates you and permanently abides by you. We saw 
many vigorous specimens of the living whale on our trip, 
as we traversed part of the hunting grounds of this huge 
and powerful fish, but we learned at Ingo that the whale is 
far stronger in death than in life. Before landing at the 
trying establishment, which is north of Hammerfest and not 



127 

far from the North Cape, we were warned hy the captain that 
we might need cologne, but we were not at all prepared for 
the overpowering stench which greeted us as we approached 
the shore. All the vile smells of the college laboratory be- 
came as perfumes of Araby in comparison. Great decom- 
posing carcasses floated in the water, and one huge fish re- 
cently captured was drawn up on the beach. Heaps of 
whale bone, whale fins, &c, were scattered about. Every 
particle of the fish, except the smell, is put to some good 
use. We would have taken photographs of the novel feat- 
ures of the scene, but our kodakist reports that the thick 
smell hanging over the place obscured the sun, preventing 
a snap-shot, and that nature revolted against the delay upon 
the spot which would be involved in a time exposure. 

THE DIRTY LAPP AND HIS REINDEER. 

We visited a Lapp encampment at Tromso. The school 
boy whose composition on the noble red man said " The 
Indian washes only once a year ; I wish I was an Indian," 
should alter his wish and petition to be a Lapp, for there is 
no external evidence that the latter washes more than once 
a lifetime, and that at his birth when he is entirely delense- 
less. In the summer a camp of the wandering Lapps diive 
several hundred of their reindeer to a valley only a few miles 
from Tromso, and it was there that we saw them. They are 
huddled in dome-shaped huts of stone, turf and birch bark, 
full of smoke from a fire in the center of the hut, which 
finds an exit only through a hole in the top of the structure 
and through the door when it is opened. They have the 
yellowish complexion, high cheek bones and low forehead 
of the Mongolian race. They are short in stature, dirty, 
vermin-breeding and wretched. The reindeer is their sup- 
port and treasure. The animal supplies them Avith milk, 
meat, clothes and transportation. Nearly everything that 
they need is made from some part, of this useful animal. 
These particular Lapps earn something by the sale to sum- 
mer tourists of the skin and articles made from the horns of 



128 

the reindeer. The nomadic Lapps and Finns of northern 
Norway and Sweden are comparatively few in number, 
miserable, semi-barbarous. But the Finns in Russian Fin- 
land, whom we saw afterward on our way from Stockholm 
to St. Petersburg, are a very different sort of people, settled 
traders and fishermen, with well-built cities of considerable 
size, like Helsingfors. 

PREPARING FOR THE WAR DANCE. 

At Bodo, returning from the North Cape, we met the Em- 
peror William of Germany in his yacht on his way to the 
cape, where, by the way, he did not see the midnight sun, 
the weather having no respect for royalty. The little Nor- 
wegian town and the vessels with which the harbor was 
crowded were gay with bunting. We ran up all of our own 
flags, fired off our four small but loud-mouthed cannon, and 
our band began to play and our German passengers to sing 
" The Watch on the Rhine." As we came near the royal 
yacht the emperor appeared on deck and responded to our 
cannon, music and shouting by a military salute, where- 
upon he was promptly kodaked by the disrespectful Ameri- 
can amateur photographers. On the day that we left Lon- 
don for the North Cape trip William arrived in that city, 
and we had the full benefit of the extensive preparations 
made by the Londoners for his visit. We saw the counter 
pictures to these glimpses of Germany's demonstrations in 
England and Norway at Cronstadt, where we found the for- 
midable gray men-of-war of the French fleet sociably nestled 
up to St. Petersburg's threatening fortifications ; again at 
Peterhoff, Alexander's summer palace and park, which, 
with its beautiful fountains, was on the czar's day gorge- 
ously illuminated (in addition to the customary display of 
fireworks) in honor of the French admiral, with whom the 
czar drove at midnight through an enthusiastic crowd of a 
hundred thousand Russians shouting " Live Russia ! live 
France ! live the czar ! " ; and again at Moscow, whose 
people lined the street which led to Sparrow Hill, where the 



129 

French visitors dined, and who hurrahed themselves hoarse 
in honor of France. Russian Alexis in Paris may have 
avoided the tell-tale demonstrations of the French crowds, 
as reported, but no restraints were placed either upon the 
people or the visitors in Russia. I drove to Sparrow Hill 
while the French were dining there. This is the fine view 
point of Moscow, the hill from which Napoleon caught with 
intense joy and relief the first glimpse of the city, and to 
which he retreated from the burning capital. On this emi- 
nence, so filled with painful historic associations for both 
nations, the Russians and French were now drinking to 
eternal good fellowship and national amity. A Russian 
officer, a near relative of an official in the Russian legation 
at Washington, said to me here : " We like only the Ameri- 
cans and French. We dislike the English, from whom we 
are separated by political differences, and we hate the Ger- 
mans." Germany, through William, makes advances to 
England and Norway. France, through her admiral, is 
effusively welcomed in Russia. The nations are taking 
partners in the game of European war soon about to begin. 

" POSTING " THROUGH NORWAY. 

We retraced our steamer course from Bergen to the North 
Cape only as far . as Throndjhem where we took train to 
Storen, and from this point to Lillehammer we drove for 
200 miles by carriage through central Norway over the 
regular posting route, crossing the Dovrefjeld, a mountain 
plateau, and then following the Gudbrandsdal, the valley of 
the Laagen river. We did not approach closely any of the 
lofty snow-clad mountains, seeing only Snehatten, and that 
at a distance. 

The scenery was not in any respect so grand as that among 
the highest Swiss snow mountains, where excellent roads 
admit the traveler to the very richest of the scenic treasures. 
But there was magnificent ravine scenery, like that of the 
Martigny side of the Tete Noir pass, in the Driva valley, 
and the gorge of Rusten, and the people themselves fur- 

9 



130 

nislied an interesting study. Extensive and attractive 
valley views successively opened before us as we followed 
for miles streams rushing through gorges in a succession of 
rapids, sometimes descending in cataracts, with cliffs often 
rising abruptly on each side. In the Driva valley in a space 
of ten miles we counted twenty-three waterfalls dashing 
down the precipitous mountain side into the rapid stream. 
We were near enough to the land of the midnight sun so 
that there was hardly any night and we could learn the 
effect of almost constant daylight on land as well as at sea. 
As we drove in the bracing, exhilarating air over the smooth 
hard roads, guarded on the precipitous side by a row of per- 
pendicular slabs of slate like a series of gravestones, we en- 
joyed many characteristic sights of the country. Here is 
seen a woman with a huge basket at her back and knitting 
in hand, hard at work with her needles as she walks along 
the road. Here a small boy holds out to be kodaked a 
monstrous old-fashioned key, in active use in his father's 
barn, of which his extended arm can scarcely sustain the 
weight. Here are a few men and many women in a field 
arranging hay on the curious racks upon which in this rainy 
short-seasoned country it is hung out to dry Behind them 
is a river whose light green waters move swiftly and on 
whose surface is a boat containing peasants whose costumes 
show red and blue. In the remote background of the pic- 
ture on the other side of the river rises a mountain, down 
whose side dashes a fine waterfall. Here is one of the sod- 
roofed houses of the country, with trees growing from the 
roof. Here is a curious old church, clumsy, slate-roofed, 
proudly pronounced the ugliest in the world. 

All along the road are specimens of the national vehicle, 
the carriol, which corresponds to the Canadian caleche, the 
Irish jaunting car and the Russian droshky. It is a curi- 
ously shaped sulky, with a perch behind for light baggage 
and for a boy. The latter sits upon the baggage, drives if 
desired, and is changed with the horses at every station. 
These stations, which are from eight to fifteen miles apart, 



131 

sometimes furnish a bit of the picturesque in building or 
peasant costume, and almost always supply something curi- 
ous in old furniture, old silver or wood-carvings. The 
people are cleanly, industrious, honest and very, very slow. 
A Norwegian mile is seven times as long as an English mile, 
and the Norwegians are seven times as long about every- 
thing else. 

Though they retain a certain sturdy independence, which 
often renders them stiff-necked subjects in Norway and ob- 
stinate, unreliable voters in Minnesota and the Dakotas, they 
are quite a different people from their water-king ancestors, 
the ancient Northmen, from whom our English forefathers 
in the old litanies prayed to be delivered. In sad need of 
industrious sensible farmers of a kind who will devote them- 
selves largely to the cultivation of the soil, and threatened 
with continued immigration of an objectionable sort from 
some other lands, the people of the Republic gladly welcome 
the coming of the Northmen, against whose abrupt and dis- 
turbing visits their ancestors petitioned for divine protection. 



The National Capital 



Newspaper Articles and Speeches Concerning 
the City of Washington 



BY 



Theodore W. Noyes. 



Washington, D. C: 

Byron S. Adams, Printer and Publisher. 

1893. 



^h 



Part II. 



Some of Washington's Grievances. 



A DOLEFUL CRY FROM THE PAST. 



Washington' s Woful Story — A?ite-Natal Grievances — Attempts 
Upon Its Life — Harsh Treatment and hiadequate Support — 
The Nation's Ward Starved by Its Guardian. 



From the Washington Evening Star, February 18, 1888. 

Modern cities, though they never yield to mere old age, 
are often said to be born, to grow to maturity, and to die 
like persons. . They are similarly afflicted with the diseases 
of infancy. Many a promising young city succumbs to 
municipal colic, to the gripings of an unwise economy or 
" old fogy " stinginess, or to municipal fever, with its flush of 
apparent health and vigor, and its subsequent exhaustion 
when this fictitious strength has disappeared. It is the 
latter disease which fills mining regions with the cadavers 
of cities. After a brief and feverish existence their frames 
moulder unburied on the mountain sides, cold, inanimate, 
startling to the solitary traveler. Man's vicissitudes of for- 
tune are not denied to cities. They are rich, poor, extrava- 
gant, industrious. Some are born " sucking a silver spoon," 
blessed in situation and natural resources. Others find life 
a series of difficulties, sometimes overcome by the indomi- 
table energy which turns a bog into the firm foundation of 
dwellings, and views a vast destruction by fire as a mere 
clearing of the ground to make room for edifices handsomer 
than those destroyed. But more frequently early disadvan- 
tages and misfortunes overcome the prospective city, just as 
circumstances of birth and training often pervert or destroy 
the higher capacities of the thief's or pauper's offspring. 
Cities also display a diversity, almost human, in manner of 



development. The mining town matures rapidly. The 
rumor of gold produces a maturity as precocious in cities as 
that developed by the heat of a tropical sun among persons. 
Other cities increase in strength slowly but surely. Their 
lives are long, and often in dying they leave to the world 
another city sprung from themselves, retaining the ancestral 
name. Thus it has been suggested, in substance, that Rome 
is the eternal city, because it is a series of Romes, each with 
a distinct existence. Death comes in as varied shapes to 
cities as to persons, and there is a like variety in the resist- 
ance offered. Mineral deposits fail, rich " finds " are made 
a hundred miles away, and a Leadville dies and goes to 
decay within a year. War, fire and pestilence wound but 
do not destroy the commercial city, which finds its mortal 
stroke in a change in the direction of the flow of trade. 

Cities, then, in certain aspects of their material develop- 
ment and decay resemble persons. If the analogy might 
be carried further, and human emotions be ascribed to per- 
sonified cities, Washington, finding a tongue, could give 
utterance to a woful autobiography. 

ANTE-NATAL GRIEVANCES. 

This recital of grievances would find a beginning in 
events which occurred previous to the city's birth. While, 
ordinarily, neither individuals nor municipal corporations 
can complain of ill-treatment at a time when they had no 
existence, the capital on the Potomac may perhaps be ex- 
cused for indulging in a feeble, preliminary wail over the 
difficulties which it experienced in being born at all. And 
this privilege should be granted the more readily in view of 
the fact that many subsequent evils can be traced to their 
sources in events of the ante-natal period. 

The location of the national capital was a subject of 
contention between North and South and between several 
different states of these sections. The claimants of the 
honor of providing the permanent seat of government were 
made unyielding in their demands by state pride and state 



jealousy, and sectional animosities added to the bitterness 
of the controversy. The subject was a fruitful source of 
wrangling in the Congress assembled under the articles of 
confederation. This body met in some one of half a dozen 
different places, according as convenience suggested or 
necessity compelled, and from time to time it named a per- 
manent location, only to reverse its decision when the subject 
was next discussed. The proposed site on the Potomac, sup- 
ported by many southern members, was rejected more than 
once. In 1783 a location on the Delaware was preferred to 
one on the Potomac, and in 1784 a commission was appointed 
to select a site upon the former river. This selection was 
not made, however, and the contention was bequeathed to 
the first Congress meeting under the Constitution. The 
wrangle soon became more heated than ever before. The 
claims of Philadelphia, Germantown, Havre de Grace, 
Wright's Ferry, on the Susquehanna, and a location on the 
Potomac were most strongly urged. On September 5, 1789, 
the House, by a vote of 31 to 19, passed a resolution fixing 
the permanent seat of government on the Susquehanna, an 
action which aroused the bitterest feelings among the 
Southern members and caused Mr. Madison to affirm his 
belief that if a prophet had started up in the Virginia con- 
vention and foretold the proceeding, Virginia would not 
have been a party to the Constitution. The Senate inserted 
Germantown, instead of a site on the Susquehanna, as the 
seat of government. The House coincided in the amend- 
ment, and the Capitol would perhaps be now standing in 
Germantown had not an amendment, affecting the location 
in no respect, carried the bill back to the Senate, where it 
failed to receive consideration during the remainder of the 
session. In the next year this phase of the wrangle was 
ended. The persistency of Mr. Madison and other Southern 
members carried the day, but a bargain was necessary to 
secure the required votes. The bill for the assumption of 
the state debts by the national government, which was also 
originally supported by a minority, was passed in conjunc- 



tion with a bill to locate the capital on the Potomac by a 
" log-rolling " arrangement between Hamilton and Jefferson. 
In July, 1790, the House, by a vote of 32 to 29, and the 
Senate, by a vote of 14 to 12, decided in favor of the Potomac. 
After ten years of preparation for the event, during which 
period a site was selected by President Washington, a board 
of commissioners contended against obstinacy and avarice 
in some of the original proprietors of the soil, and work on 
several public buildings was begun, Washington as the 
national capital came into being. From its cradle it was 
surrounded by enemies eager for its life. President Wash- 
ington was taunted with sordid motives in causing the capital 
to be placed near his estates on the Potomac. The bargain 
by which the question was settled was denounced as fraudu- 
lent and corrupt, and each disappointed and incensed claim- 
ant of the capital prize in this legislative lottery awaited a 
chance to gratify revenge and to test the fortune of a new 
drawing by strangling the successful competitor. 

The first grievance, then, of Washington — the city con- 
trolled exclusively by Congress, the ward of the nation — is 
that from its tenderest years its nerves have been unstrung, 
its growth retarded, and its constitution undermined by a 
well-founded terror, due to 

THE ATTEMPTS UPON ITS LIFE 

and the threats of sudden and violent destruction made from 
time to time by its guardian. Like the hero of " Great 
Expectations," the capital was brought up " by hand," and 
its guardian was forever " on the rampage." From the day 
in 1800 when the archives of government were brought 
from Philadelphia in " seven large boxes and four or five 
smaller ones," and an army of fifty- four office-holders swelled 
the population of the city, there have been periodical at- 
tempts to remove the seat of government, and such removal 
would have meant, of course, the death of Washington. An 
Englishman named Weld, who visited the future capital in 
1796, says : " Notwithstanding all that has been done at the 



city and the large sums of money which have been expended, 
there are numbers of people in the United States living to 
the north of the Potomac, particularly in Philadelphia, who 
are still very adverse to the removal of the seat of Govern- 
ment thither, and are doing all in their power to check the 
progress of the buildings in the city, and to prevent the 
Congress from meeting there at the appointed time." Those 
who had thus opposed the removal to Washington were the 
same who now endeavored to effect a second removal, and 
who, as part of their policy, sought to keep the city in a con- 
dition which would serve as an argument in favor of the 
change. As a sample of the attacks upon the infant capital, 
hear a new " Crito," in his " Letters on the Seat of Govern- 
ment," published in 1807 : " In the meantime, be it known 
to the good people of the Union, from New Hampshire to 
Georgia (for I may presume, without fear of contradiction, 
that ninety-nine hundredths of the youth of the United 
States grow up to manhood without ever having seen the 
capital of their country), that the national bantling called 
the City of Washington remains, after ten years of expensive 
fostering, a rickety infant, unable to go alone. Nature will 
not be forced. A sickly child cannot be dressed and dan- 
dled into a healthy constitution. This embryo of the state 
will always be a disappointment to its parents, a discredit 
to the fond opinions of its worthy god-fathers and god- 
mothers, and an eyesore to all its relations to the remotest 
degree of consanguinity." Crito's advice, in conclusion, is 
to remove the seat of government to Philadelphia, " the very 
focus of foreign and domestic intelligence." Crito's method 
of using as an argument in favor of death the sickly condi- 
tion of the nation's " bantling," caused by 

HARSH TREATMENT AND INADEQUATE SUPPORT 

on the part of its constitutional protectors, seems to have 
been popular. To neglect the infant, to threaten it con- 
stantly with destruction, and then to urge its consequent 
feebleness as a reason for killing it outright, was a favorite 



6 

policy with its enemies. After the capture and partial burn- 
ing of the city by the British in 1814, a misfortune caused 
mainly by the failure of the government, in spite of remon- 
strance, to provide it with adequate defenses, a vigorous at- 
tempt was made by Americans to complete the work of 
destruction begun b}^ the British. In the course of the 
debate at that time upon the expediency of removing the 
seat of government, Representative Lewis of Virginia com- 
plained that for the last ten or twelve years similar attempts 
had been made, the effect of which was to create alarm and 
paralyze improvement to the great injury of the public. He 
pointed out that hundreds and thousands of individuals had 
been induced from a perfect confidence in the permanency of 
the seat of government to expend their all in its improvement? 
who would be reduced to beggary and want by a removal. 
A committee to whom the subject was referred reported a 
resolution, " That it is inexpedient to remove the seat of 
Government at this time from Washington city." A motion 
to strike out " inexpedient " and insert " expedient," after a 
tie vote of 68 to 68, was decided in the affirmative by the 
speaker. The report, as amended, was referred to the com- 
mittee of the whole house and was passed after debate by a 
vote of 72 to 71. When the bill was reported to the House, 
Philadelphia was inserted as the future capital, and in the 
end, on the question of engrossing the bill for a third read- 
ing, it was lost by a vote of 83 to 74. This account of one 
of the alarming movements which frightened the young 
capital out of many a year's growth, may serve as a sugges- 
tion of those which followed. If the stale allusion to the 
experience of Damocles is ever justifiable, this is the occasion, 
for the city, in very truth, lived and grew with a threatening 
sword suspended over its head. The latest assault of vigor 
by capital-movers was that made in 1869 in favor of St. 
Louis, by L. U. Reavis and others outside of Congress, and 
by some Western Senators and Representatives within Con- 
gress. In reply to the question, " When will the removal be 
effected ? " Reavis says in his book : " I unhesitatingly answer 



that the change will be made within five years from Jan. 
1,1869, * * * and before 1875 the President of the 
United States will deliver his message at the new seat of 
Government in the Mississippi Valley." The capital has 
not been moved, and will not be moved, except as the result 
of some extraordinary political convulsion ; but this convic- 
tion is the growth of recent years, and the mischief done by 
the constant agitation of the subject in the past can hardly 
be estimated. 

Though the first of Washington's grievances is the ani- 
mosity of many among those who should have been the 
city's protectors, 

THE INDIFFERENCE OF OTHERS NOT ACTIVELY HOSTILE, 

has been an evil of hardly less magnitude. Under the Con- 
stitution Congress has power of exclusive legislation over 
the District of Columbia. It is a tract of national territory 
to be governed by the representatives of the whole people. 
Its interests are entitled to the thoughtful consideration of 
every one of its constitutionally appointed legislators. Un- 
fortunately they have not received, and do not receive, this 
consideration. In the House discussion of 1871 upon the 
bill to provide a territorial form of government for the Dis- 
trict, one of the members of the District committee said that 
within two years parts of only nine afternoons had been 
spent in legislation for the capital. The improvement in 
this respect since that date has not been startling. The an- 
nouncement that a short time is to be devoted by Congress 
to District affairs is looked upon by many legislators as an 
invitation to be absent. Others remain long enough to 
show that they view their presence and attention as a per- 
sonal favor to citizens of the District, and not as a part of 
their Congressional duty. Those Congressmen who consider 
that the main purpose of their terms is to arm themselves 
for a re-election are of course bored or disgusted with petty 
and uninteresting District affairs. Discussion concerning 
such affairs furnishes nothing to be quoted in the home 



8 

papers for their constituents' benefit and their own glory. 
Even of those who interest themselves in the District a con- 
siderable proportion endeavor to utilize it as a field of ex- 
periment for their political or other hobbies, the practical 
application of which they would not, in many instances, 
dare to attempt at home, where there are voters to make 
their resentment felt in case the experiment should prove 
hurtful. But the District is the apothecary's cat, to be dosed 
experimentally with each dubious compound before it can 
safely be offered to the public. 

The capital could hardly have anticipated such dis- 
couraging treatment. The early standard of duty set for 
Congress in the matter of its management of the District 
was not a low one. In 1803 Representative Bacon made a 
formidable estimate of the expense and loss of time to the 
nation, increasing with the growth of the District, which 
would be involved in the assumption by Congress of the 
power of exclusive legislation. " Should justice," he said, 
" be done to the exercise of this power, it was likely that as 
much time would be spent in legislating for this District as 
for the whole United States." It is hardly necessary to say 
that increasing population has not secured a proportionate 
increase in the Congressional time devoted to District affairs, 
and, in view of the facts, the very suggestion that the capi- 
tal's legislature should give one-half its thoughts to the 
capital's interests seems ridiculous. 

An unfitness for the performance of the duties assigned 
it has often been urged as part either of 

THE ACCUSATION OR CONFESSION OF CONGRESSIONAL INDIF- 
FERENCE 

in respect to Washington. In 1803 Representative Ran- 
dolph remarked in the course of debate that Congress was 
incompetent to legislate for the District, adding " It was well 
known that the indolence of other members [than the Dis- 
trict committee] or their indifference, inseparable from the 
situation in which they were placed, would prevent Congress 



from legislating with a full understanding of the objects be- 
fore them." Congress for a long time not only accepted the 
idea of its incapacity to govern the people of the District, 
but apparently forgot that it had any responsibilities what- 
ever in respect to the capital city. The excuse of unfitness 
for failure to furnish the general legislation necessary for the 
welfare of the residents of the District does not have even a 
tendency to relieve Congress from the blame which attaches 
to its neglect to carry out the original plan and implied 
agreement to build up a magnificent capital on the Poto- 
mac. It could, at least, have appropriated the money re- 
quired to meet its obligations, even if, in truth, it found itself 
incompetent to pass proper laws. But even when most 
liberal in the disbursement of the people's money, it had 
not a cent to expend in rendering the people's city attrac- 
tive. The blaze of glory, which the mere presence of our 
national legislators casts upon their place of meeting was 
thought, perhaps, by members of Congress, to hide all defects 
in the appearance of the capital, and to amount to a satis- 
faction in full of their constitutional obligations toward the 
District. For years the national legislature permitted the 
•capital entrusted to its keeping to be an object of derision 
and contempt to foreigner and citizen. More than that, it 
contributed by its own neglect to make more wretched the 
city's forlorn condition, and then joined in the laugh at the 
latter's expense. 



10 



Some of Washington's Grievances. 



SLOW GROWTH OF THE NEGLECTED CAPITAL. 



Early Descriptions of the City — Washington in Bankruptcy — 
Geese a?id Hogs on Massachusetts Avenue — The Flippant 
Dickens and Melancholy Trollope — Beauties of the Neiv 
Washington. 

From the Washington Evening Star, February 25, 1888. 

Washington's two grievances — the one against its 
hostile, the other against its neglectful, guardians — operated 
together to its disadvantage. The miserable state of the city 
for three-fourths of a century, during which Congressional 
disfavor or indifference checked its growth, and the efforts of 
capital-movers shut out new settlers, and discouraged its 
residents from improving lands which might soon be made 
valueless, is attested by all descriptions. The child of the 
nation, neglected and nearly abandoned by its constitutional 
protectors, with appearance and health uncared for, insuffi- 
ciently nourished, and in constant terror of death, did not, 
wonderful to relate, develop rapidly and vigorously. Be- 
tween 1790 and 1800, the interval within which the efforts 
were made to prevent the seat of government from leaving 
Philadelphia, the private houses erected at Washington were 
few in number, being mostly empty structures, built as a 
speculation, or the rude huts of workmen on the President's 
House and the Capitol. In 1800 the small population was 
clustered, for the most part, in two settlements, the one 
called Hamburg, on observatory hill, the other called Car- 
rollsburg, on James Creek, between the arsenal and the 
navy yard. The site of the city was covered in the main by 
marshes, pastures, dense woods, and some cultivated ground 



11 

where wheat, tobacco, and Indian corn were raised. The 
elevations were overgrown with shrub-oak bushes. There 
were only two houses on the line of Pensylvania avenue be- 
tween the President's House and the Capitol. For much of 
its- length this avenue was " a deep morass covered with 
alder bushes." Chas. W. Janson, an Englishman, said of 
the place in 1806 : " Strangers after viewing the offices of 
state are apt to inquire for the city while they are in its very 
center. * * * Some half-starved cattle browsing among 
the bushes present a melancholy spectacle to a stranger. 
Quail and other birds are constantly shot within a hundred 
yards of the Capitol during the sitting of the houses of Con- 
gress." Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, and Mrs. 
President Adams, complained of the scattered condition of 
the houses. On the same subject John Law, one of the most 
prominent of the early citizens of Washington, said : " A 
loose and disconnected population was scattered over the city, 
and instead of a flourishing town the stranger who visited us 
saw for years a number of detached villages, having no 
common interests, furnishing little mutual support, hardly 
sustaining a market, and divided by great public reserva- 
tions." The discreditable capital thus described was the 
result of leaving a plan of magnificent intentions to be car- 
ried into execution by a population feeble in numbers and 
resources, and hampered by the hostility of some and by the 
indifference and neglect of a great majority of its legislators 
and constitutional protectors. The same conditions, being 
permitted to continue, 

RETAINED THE CITY IN ITS PITIFUL PLIGHT 

as the laughing-stock of visitors. In 1814, after the Secre- 
tary of War had sneered at the suggestion that the British 
might molest the " sheep walk," and after the national rep- 
resentatives more than Washington's would-be defenders 
had permitted the city to be captured, the following was its 
appearance : " Twelve or fifteen clusters of houses at a con- 
siderable distance from each other, bringing to our recollec- 



12 

tions the appearance of a camp of nomad Arabs, which, how- 
ever, if connected together would make a very respectable 
town, not much inferior, perhaps, to the capital of Virginia, 
and here and there an insulated house ; the whole of it, when 
seen from the ruins of our public edifices, looking more like 
the place where proud Washington once stood than where 
humble Washington now lies." The capital-moving project 
of 1814 was, as we have seen, a failure, but it was not with- 
out an effect in deterring intending settlers and in impov- 
erishing those already in possession. D. B. Warden, in his 
" Description of the District of Columbia," published in 1816, 
says : " The value of lots has diminished on account of the 
project of Eastern members of Congress to transfer the seat 
of Government to some other place." 

Lots were sold but slowly, even at the reduced prices, and 
the city extended its limits of settlement with proportionate 
slowness. In 1824 Mr. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, 
being "sent to the country for his health," removed himself 
far from the bustle of the city to Clement Hill mansion, on 
the northwest corner of 14th street and Massachusetts avenue, 
a location now in the heart of one of the most valuable sec- 
tions of the city. 

WASHINGTON IN BANKRUPTCY. 

While Congress neglected Washington, its residents 
were goaded by taunts at the capital of the nation into 
desperate efforts to perform the task intended to be per- 
formed by the government, but left undone. Sums beyond 
their resources were spent upon the improvement of the 
streets, in erecting city buildings, and in the endeavor to 
give the capital a commercial footing by digging the Ches- 
apeake and Ohio canal ; but the effort was beyond their 
unassisted strength, and the relief of Congress was sought. 
Senator Southard, in 1835, reported that the debt of the city 
reached " the enormous sum of $1,806,442.59 ;" that it had 
no means from which it could apply at that time a single 
dollar to the discharge of its obligations ; that owing to its 



13 

debts in connection with the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, 
foreign bankers would in all probability become the owners 
of a great proportion of the property within the capital of 
the Union ; that the city authorities had been misled into 
expenditures which did not properly belong to them, 
although the views by which they were governed were of a 
liberal and public-spirited character, and that nothing was 
found in the conduct of the inhabitants or the authorities 
to excite in Congress a reluctance to come to their relief. 
Aid was accordingly granted the bankrupt city, but the 
recommendation, made by Senator Southard, after an ex- 
haustive consideration of the relations between the nation 
and its capital, that the government should pay regularly 
a proportion of District expenses, was disregarded, and the 
city, though rescued from foreign bankers, was permitted 
to remain a national disgrace. In 1839 George Combe, the 
British traveler, described the city as " like a large strag- 
gling village reared in a drained swamp." 

MASSACHUSSETTS AVENUE ABANDONED TO HOGS. 

By the corporation laws of that period geese and hogs 
were prohibited from running at large "south of Massa- 
chusetts avenue," under penalty of seizure. They might 
traverse the land north of that avenue at their pleasure. 
Practically, one section of Washington was on the same 
footing as another, since the domestic animals, in spite of 
all law, had the freedom of the entire city up to a late date. 
But what a mortification to the street which now boasts 
residences upon which fortunes have been lavished that it 
was once set apart, impliedly, as the boundary of the city's 
goose and hog-pen. Charles Dickens, in "American Notes," 
gives us his impressions of neglected Washington in 1842. 
He playfully refers to it as " the headquarters of tobacco- 
tinctured saliva," and adds : " It is sometimes called the 
City of Magnificent Distances ; but it might, with greater 
propriety, be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions, for 
it is only on taking a bird's eye view of it from the top of the 



14 

Capitol that one can at all comprehend the vast designs of its 
projector, an aspiring Frenchman. Spacious avenues that 
begin in nothing and lead nowhere, streets, mile long, that 
only want houses, roads, and inhabitants ; public buildings 
that need but a public to be complete, and ornaments of 
great thoroughfares which only need great thoroughfares 
to ornament, are its leading features. One might fancy the 
season over and most of the houses gone out of town with 
their masters. To the admirers of cities it is a Barmecide 
feast ; a pleasant field for the imagination to rove in ; a 
monument raised to a deceased project, with not even a 
legible inscription to record its departed greatness. Such 
as it is it is likely to remain. * * * It is very un- 
healthy. Few people would live in Washington, I take it, 
who were not obliged to reside there ; and the tides of emi- 
gration and speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, 
are little likely to flow at any time toward such dull and 
sluggish water." The discouraging observations of the 
novelist are only an echo of those in which Americans per- 
mitted themselves to indulge. The capital's growth was 
watered by a perpetual shower of disparagement and prophe- 
cies of evil. Neither plants nor cities flourish under a hot- 
water treatment. 

THE PROMISE OF BETTER DAYS. 

Between 1840 and 1850 Congress showed a tendency 
to improve the condition of the District. The personal in- 
fluence of Mayor W. W. Seaton, one of the editors of the 
National Intelligencer, is said to be entitled to a large part of 
the credit for this friendly disposition ; and so unusual was 
the appropriation of any considerable sum for the benefit of 
the District that apprehensions were jocularly expressed of 
the bankruptcy of the United States Treasury if Seaton con- 
tinued to be mayor. These outlays by Congress quieted to 
some extent the fear that the capital would be moved, and 
population increased with unusual rapidity. Since 1810, 
when the city's inhabitants numbered 8,208, the increase 



15 

had been at the insignificant rate of about 500 a year, or 
5,000 for each 10 years. Thus the population in 1820 was 
13,247; in 1830, 18,326, and in 1840, 23,364. In 1850 at 
the old rate it should have been about 28,000, but under 
the encouragement of congressional favor and free from the 
fear of a present removal of the seat of government, the city 
swelled its population to 40,000. The initial steps in the 
work of improving the public grounds were taken by A. J. 
Downing, the landscape gardener, in 1851-52, but death 
stopped his labors and no one filled his place. 

In 1862, Anthony Trollope was in Washington. Like 
Tom Moore, Mrs. Trollope and Charles Dickens, who pre- 
ceded him, he writes of the city in a dyspeptic spirit. Every- 
thing disagrees with him. " Washington," he says, " is but 
a ragged, unfinished collection of unbuilt, broad streets, as 
to the completion of which there can now, I imagine, be but 
little hope. Of all places that I know it is the most ungainly 
and the most unsatisfactory. I fear I must also say the most 
presumptuous in its pretensions." 

HOT SHOT FOR MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE. 

Trollope seems to have conceived an especial spite 
against Massachusetts avenue, now the fashionable residence 
street of the city, and the vigor of his assaults justifies the 
suspicion that he was sent on some wild-goose chase, and 
found the mud of that street particularly disagreeable. 
" Massachusetts avenue runs the whole length of the city, 
and is inserted on the maps as a full-blown street, about four 
miles in length. Go there, and you will find yourself not 
only out of town, away among the fields, but you will find 
yourself beyond the fields in an uncultivated, undrained 
wilderness. Tucking your trousers up to your knees you will 
wade through the bogs ; you will lose yourself among rude 
hillocks ; you will be out of the reach of humanity. * * * 
The place is very full during Congress, and very empty 
during the recess. By which I mean to be understood that 
those streets which are blessed with houses are full when 



16 



Congress meets. I do not think that Congress makes much 
difference to Massachusetts avenue. * * * A stranger 
finds himself in the position of being sent across the country 
knee-deep in mud, wading through snipe grounds, looking 
for civilization where none exists." He adds, in respect to 
the city : " Desirous of praising it in some degree, I can say 
that the design is grand. The thing done, however, falls so 
iufinitely short of the design that nothing but disappoint- 
ment is felt. And I fear that there is no look-out into the 
future which can justif}^ the hope that the design will be 
fulfilled. * * * They who belong to it turn up their 
noses at it. * * * Even in winter, when Congress is 
sitting, Washington is melancholy ; but Washington in 
summer must surely be the saddest spot on earth." Look- 
ing upon the city simultaneously with Mr. Trollope one can 
reply only feebly to his strictures. Unprejudiced descrip- 
tions corroborate his account of the forlorn condition of 
Washington at that time. George Alfred Townsend, in a 
magazine article, says : " When the rebellion began the fol- 
lowing was the appearance of the city : Not one street was 
paved for any great consecutive distance ; there was not a 
street car in the city ; the Capitol was without a dome and 
the new wings were filled with workmen. No fire depart- 
ment worthy of the name was to be seen, and a mere con- 
stabulary comprised the police, which had to call on the 
United States marines, as in 1857, when the latter fired upon 
a mob and killed and wounded a large number of people. 
The water supply was wholly afforded by pumps and springs. 
Gas had been in partial use for several years, but little else 
was lighted except Pennsylvania avenue and the public 
buildings. * * * Nearly one-half of the city was cut 
off from the rest by a ditch and called the Island, while an 
intervening strip of mall and park was patrolled by outlaws 
and outcasts, with only a bridge here and there for outlet. 
The riverside was a mass of earthern bluffs pierced by two 
streets, and scarcely attainable for mire and obstructions. 
Georgetown communicated with the Capitol by an omnibus 



17 

line, and there was no ferry to Alexandria to be remembered 
as such, except in the sensitive traditions of the oldest resi- 
dents. * * * In short the city was relatively in embryo 
as much as when Moore, Weld, Janson, and Basil Hall 
described it early in the century." 

Washington's leap into prosperity. 

But Mr. Trollope's disgust at the Washington of the 
present was equalled only by his hopelessness in respect to 
its future ; and as a prophet he proves a complete failure. 
From the time when the capital was a camp and hospital, 
its streets filled with soldiers and resounding with martial 
music, its churches saddened by the moan of wounded and 
dying, its development as a city has been continuous. The 
greater part of this magical transformation has been wrought 
within the last eighteen years. In place of a straggling 
country village, with zig-zag grades, no sewerage, unim- 
proved reservations, second-rate dwellings, streets of mud 
and mire, and wretched sidewalks, the modern Washington 
has arisen a political, scientific and literary center, with a 
population trebled since 1860; a city sustained, improved 
and adorned by an annual expenditure of more than four 
million dollars ; with surface remodelled ; with an elaborate 
and costly system of sewers and water mains ; with about 
150 miles of improved streets, nearly one-half of which are 
paved with concrete ; with convenient transportation by 83 
miles of street railway ; with numerous churches and schools, 
as well as government buildings of architectural pretensions ; 
with broad streets shaded for a distance of 280 miles by 
more than 60,000 trees, destined to make Washington a 
forest city ; with attractive suburban drives ; with reserva- 
tions and parkings given a picturesque beauty by shrubbery 
and rich foliage, statuary, fountains and flowers, and with 
costly private dwellings, rivalling palaces in size and splen- 
dor of interior adornment springing up in rapid succession 
where Trollope sank knee-deep in mud. This wonderful 
change for the better, effected by certain wise and energetic 



18 

agents of the general government whom the District delights 
to honor, is the result, in part, of a reversal of the conditions 
which hampered the city's growth. Congress, no longer 
hostile, or indifferent concerning the pecuniary needs of the 
District, has spent large sums not only upon public build- 
iugs, but also in the improvement of the city, at first spas- 
modically, since 1878 systematically. The people of the 
District, encouraged by the general abandonment of the 
idea of a removal of the seat of government, have also 
made extensive outlays. But the main public expense of 
the work of recreating the city is represented by a present 
debt of more than $20,000,000, nearly all of which has 
been incurred by officials placed over the affairs of the 
District by the general government in carrying out those 
" magnificent intentions " concerning the capital, which, by 
the original plan, the nation and not the District was to 
execute. If, by any reasoning, the citizens of Washington 
can be held legally or morally responsible for this debt, it 
must be said, as was remarked by Senator Southard in the 
similar case of 1835, that they have been "misled into ex- 
penditures which do not properly belong to them." 



19 



Some of Washington's Grievances. 



COMPLAINTS, NEEDS AND HOPES OF THE PRESENT. 



A Little Bill For Back-Pay — The District's Antiquated 
Laws — Unfilled Marshes and Unfinished Water-Works — 
The Railroad Dictatorship — S2ibtirban Development — Cur- 
rent Needs. 



From the Washington Evening Star, Jlarch 3, 1888. 

Washington's recital of past grievances must be modi- 
fied somewhat to represent just complaints at the present 
time. Capital-movers no longer retard the city's growth. 
The nation's " bantling " no longer fears sudden death. Con- 
gress fulfills its obligations in respect to the improvement of 
the District with fidelity. An appropriation equal to one- 
half of the estimated District expenses is annually made, and 
considerable sums are frequently appropriated for special 
purposes which enure to the benefit of the capital. The 
ward of the nation is properly clothed and fed. There can 
be little complaint of injustice on the part of Congress in its 
treatment of the capital so far as outlays of the present are 
concerned. If the District has a grievance in this respect it 
consists in the fact that the same principle of dividing ex- 
penses which now prevails has not been applied to previous 
outlays, with the result of reimbursing the District for past 
expenditures beyond its proportion. It is difficult to see 
how, with justice and consistency, this reimbursement can be 
avoided by Congress. The General Government, by the fact 
of planning a magnificent capital, covering a large area and 
characterized by broad streets, avenues and reservations to 
an extent unsuitable for a self-supporting commercial city, 
and by founding this capital in a place comparatively un- 
inhabited, as well as by the terms of the bargain with the 
owners of the soil, and by the declarations of its representa- 



20 

tives at the founding of the city and afterward, showed an 
intention to build up a national city, at the nation's expense, 
on a grand scale, irrespective of the future population of the 
District. The capital was to be primarily a center of federal 
action, and the occupation of the ground by settlers was 
merely incidental to this great purpose. It was to be a 
meeting-place for the use, convenience and entertainment of 
the people of the entire union, and the expense of its support 
and adornment was not to be limited by the scanty resources 
of what permanent population it might acquire. Probable 
favoritism toward this population was the ground of one of 
the arguments against the ratification of the clause of the 
Constitution, which provides for " the ten miles square." In 
the Virginia convention Patrick Henry said : " The people 
within that place may be excused from all the burdens im- 
posed on the rest of society and may enjoy exclusive emolu- 
ments to the great injury of the rest of the people." And in 
the course of pamphlet discussion respecting the govern- 
ment of the District, protest was entered against Congress 
meeting all the needs of the capital, on the ground that the 
independence and self-respect of its citizens would be de- 
graded. Congress seems for a long time to have obeyed 
this protest so far as to render no assistance whatever worthy 
the name in the work of capital-making. For more than 
thirty years, during which period $700,000, had been real- 
ized from the sale of lots pledged for the benefit of improve- 
ments, its expenditures upon streets and avenues, which 
were its exclusive property, were less than $700 per year, 
and its annual appropriations since that time until a recent 
period in the city's history, have been widely varying in 
amount, and at the best inadequate. In 1878 the Govern- 
ment, which had in the beginning impliedly undertaken to 
meet all the expenses of capital-making, and then shifted 
that buiden in the main upon private citizens, decided that 
justice required it to pay one-half of the District's expenses. 
The payment of this proportion by the United States as the 
untaxed owner of one-half the city property, and as in- 



21 

terested to that extent in all improvements, had been urged 
by Senator Southard in 1835. He also advocated 

THE REIMBURSEMENT TO THE DISTRICT 

of whatever it had expended in the past beyond its just pro- 
portion. Congress has followed only one-half of Senator 
Southard's advice. If justice requires that the Government 
should pay a certain proportion of District expenses now, 
both justice and consistency demand that it should pay the 
same proportion of the expenses of the years of its indiffer- 
ence and neglect. It was shown in 1874 that up to date the citi- 
zens of Washington had expended upon the capital in excess 
of the amount appropriated by Congress about $13,500,000- 
A balance should be struck, and whatever sum is necessary 
to make the expenditures of the General Government upon 
the capital equal to those of its citizens, for the eighty-seven 
years of the city's life, should be credited to the District. 
This act of equity is the more necessary for the reason that 
the heavy debt, to which reference has been made, guaran- 
teed by the government, but constituting in effect a mortgage 
of about 18 per cent, upon the assessed value of private 
taxable property in the District, weighs heavily upon the 
citizens of the capital. The indebtedness which bankrupted 
Washington in 1835 is now increased more than ten-fold. 
It will be in the distant future, if the time ever comes, when 
the city will be able to extinguish this debt, which mean- 
while will rest as an incubus upon the prosperity of the 
capital. 

Another grievance which is still felt by the District is 
the avoidance by Congress of general legislation respecting 
its affairs. It complains that while it needs as much legis- 
lation as many states, it is granted only a few hours or a few 
days of each session, to be largely wasted in debate without 
decision. Members of Congress reply when not too indiffer- 
ent to attempt an answer, that great national affairs cannot 
be expected to give way to the petty municipal concerns of 
an insignificant patch of territory. They are also restrained 



22 

by a sense of their own unfitness for such legislation, coupled 
with the knowledge that injurious mistakes will subject 
them to hearty abuse by the citizens of the District, who, 
being without votes, have no other method of expressing 
their disapprobation. This shirking by Congress of a disa- 
greeable duty has had an evil effect upon the laws of the 
capital. Complaint was early made upon this score. Mr. 
J. Elliot, in his "Historical Sketches of the Ten Miles 
Square," published in 1830, says that no essential changes 
had been made in the general laws, or in their administra- 
tion since the cession of the District hy Maryland and 
Virginia, and that the citizens were governed by laws as 
they existed thirty years previously, which had accumulated 
for generations, many of them barbarous, long since wisely 
abrogated by the states in which they prevailed, but still in 
force in the District. The author adds some specimens of 
these curious, antiquated laws. 

THE ANTIQUATED LAWS OF THE MODERN CAPITAL. 

Cause of complaint has not been removed since the date 
of Elliot's demand for reform. The District laws have been 
aptly compared to those of the Medes and Persians, which 
change not. The common law and the old British and 
Maryland statutes in force at the time of cession have not 
been sufficiently altered by Congress, and these very altera- 
tions have been sweepingly described by a prominent lawyer 
of Washington as " little dabs of law, little blistering or 
caustic acts, dropped at random on the raw body politic, un- 
adjusted to any want, connected with nothing, remedying 
nothing, and often worse confusing what no mortal man 
could understand before." In many respects the laws are a 
hundred years behind the times. The occurrence in Wash- 
ington of great trials, like the star-route cases and that of 
Guiteau, has called the attention of the country to the con- 
dition of District law, but no substantial improvement has 
resulted. At present the laws and ordinances are not even 
collected in a code. To learn even the municipal regula- 



23 

tions one must consult the acts of the corporations of Wash- 
ington and Georgetown, deceased ; the acts of the Levy Court 
of the County of Washington, deceased ; certain acts of the 
Legislative Assembly, deceased ; certain regulations of the 
Commissioners of the District given the force of law, and 
certain acts of Congress. These ordinances are often contra- 
dictory, clumsily drawn or incomplete, and need to be re- 
vised, as well as consolidated and codified. Several fruitless 
attempts have been made to obtain the necessary legislation 
by Congress. Successive revisers of the general laws have, 
since the time of Cranch, exposed in vain to the national 
legislature the defects, absurdities, and barbarities of the 
statutes. A code containing only existing laws cannot be 
passed, because members are unable to refrain from taking 
advantage of the endless invitations to improvement which 
are offered, and a revised code cannot, it seems, be passed, 
because members squabble to such an extent over proposed 
changes on important subject, that the limited time with 
which Congress favors the District is consumed without 
bringing the question to a decision. The House of Repre- 
sentatives has very recently doubled the number of days de- 
voted to the affairs of the District of Columbia, and now 
agrees, if nothing of greater importance interferes, and 
quorums can be secured, and nobody at the time is possessed 
of the filibustering mania, to legislate for the capital on two 
afternoons of each month instead of one. This increase is 
exceedingly welcome to the people of Washington, and it is 
hoped that time may now be found to rid the District of some 
of the English statutes existing at the time of the first emi- 
gration to Maryland, which are our law merely because 
" found applicable to local and other circumstances " in that 
state and at that time. They are hardly adapted to the 
nineteenth century and the capital of the United States. 
The District should be given a comprehensive code or body 
of revised statutes, embodying a little of the modern spirit of 
legislation, both in respect to substantive law and procedure. 
There are always some faithful and able friends of Washington 



24 

in Congress, especially but not exclusively upon the District 
committees of the two houses, who labor diligently for the 
District's good, though sometimes discouraged by Congres- 
sional inertia and by the confusing and contradictory appeals 
of citizens. To these friends Washington appeals for relief 
from the clog upon its onward and upward march, which is 
caused by the mummy of ancient laws now tightly fastened 
upon it. 

NEGLECT OF WASHINGTON'S HEALTH. 

A grievance both of the past and of the present is found 
in the fact that the health of the capital has been neglected. 
The sanitary condition of the city has received insufficient 
attention from Congress at all times. It will not be neces- 
sary, however, to point out to the sympathetic reader earlier 
evils than those of 1888, and everything but mere reference 
may be omitted in respect to marshes long unfilled within 
the city limits, in respect to the ditch, festering in the sun 
and poisoning the air, which formerly existed under the 
name of the Washington Canal, in respect to imperfect sewer- 
age and a dozen other sources of disease partially or entirely 
removed only after years of inaction. A grievance still ex- 
isting, though the first steps toward its removal have been 
taken, may be cited, and that will be sufficient. The old 
Committee of One Hundred, a voluntary association of prom- 
inent citizens, whose representations to Congress gave the 
city its new government in 1878, say in their memorial to 
that bod} 7 : " The marshes which skirt the entire front of our 
city are the growth of years of neglect of the commercial and 
sanitary interests of the nation's capital. The remedy is to 
be found only in a judicious plan of harbor improvements 
by which the health and commerce of the city will be alike 
promoted. Congress has lavished millions on the rivers and 
harbors of the country, in localities, too, whose claims to 
national consideration are insignificant as compared with 
Washington, while comparatively nothing has been done for 
the harbor of its capital, or for the navigation of a great 
river which has capacity to float its navy and to sustain a 



25 

vast marine commerce." The improvement suggested by 
this quotation is now in progress and over 500 acres have 
been partially reclaimed. Work has been delayed by ques- 
tions, believed not to be serious, concerning title to a part of 
the land to be improved, and by a lack of necessary funds 
as the result of President Cleveland's pocket veto of the last 
river and harbor bill, which afflicted the just with the un- 
just. There should be no dilly-dallying or half-way meas- 
ures in the reclamation of the Potomac bottoms. The land 
that has been partly reclaimed is in no condition to withstand 
a rise in the water, and there is constant danger that floods, 
freshets and ice-gorges may destroy all that has been accom- 
plished. There has been, of course, an improvement in the 
city's health with the filling of marshy flats covered with 
coarse grasses, which, besmeared with the foul current from 
one of the city's large sewers, and exposed at low-tide to the 
heat of the sun, gave to each wind the seeds of disease and 
death. But a rank vegetation on the half-reclaimed land 
is still left to decay and to threaten the health of the capital. 
Congress should make prompt and adequate provision for 
the vigorous prosecution of the work. The proposed im- 
provement will not only benefit the city's harbor and health, 
but it will add to the government reservations, fully reim- 
bursing the expense of reclamation, several hundred acres 
of valuable land, which can be converted into an attractive 
park. 

The healthfulness of Washington is a subject that has 
been much discussed, and the city from its earliest days has 
been put upon the defensive. At the tim^ when the site of 
the capital was chosen it was charged and denied that the 
climate was destructive to Northern constitutions. Mr. 
Warden (1816), in the first elaborate description of the Dis- 
trict, says that the prevailing opinion that Washington is 
unhealthy is based on prejudice. Mr. J. Elliott (1830), in 
the work to which reference has been made, says : " The 
prejudices against the general health of this District have 
been dissipated by the monthly publication of meteorologi- 



26 

cal observations, and the interments in the public grave- 
yards, authenticated by the board of health." But even the 
figures of the board of health do not seem to have banished 
the prejudice entirely, since Dickens, in 1842, pronounced 
the city " very unhealthy," and that opinion has been re- 
tained by many up to a recent time. The site would not 
seem, however, to have been originally objectionable. Henry 
Fleet, its first white visitor, who was captured in 1621 by 
the Indians living here, says : " This place, without all ques- 
tion, is the most pleasant and healthful place in all this coun- 
try, and most convenient for habitation ; the air temperate 
in summer and not violent in winter." The charge of 
unhealthfulness was, doubtless, first made by those who 
wished the seat of government to be located elsewhere than 
upon the Potomac. If any reliance can be placed upon sta- 
tistics, the city's average health has been excellent, and the 
death-rate of the white population is now reduced to about 
the minimum reached in large cities, in spite of the sug- 
gested drawbacks ; and such of these as now remain may 
be readily removed. Malarial diseases which have pre- 
vailed to a considerable extent will, it is thought, be almost 
entirely prevented by the reclamation of the flats. In the 
absence of its disease-breeding marshes, with its improved 
sewerage, with abundance of pure water to be secured from 
the comprehensive system of supply now approaching com- 
pletion, with its broad, airy streets and its thousands of shade 
trees, and without the noxious odors of a manufacturing 
city, it should be one of the healthiest, as it is one of the 
handsomest cities in the world. 

THE REGION OF THE RAILROADS. 

An urgent grievance of the present, which grows more 
unbearable year after year with the attempts at growth of 
the sections of the city specially injured, is that which arises 
from the conduct of the railroads entering Washington. 
Their illegal occupation of streets and reservations, and the 
damage and disfigurement which they unnecessarily inflict. 



27 

are known to every reader of The Star, however recent the 
date of his subscription, and little additional comment is 
necessary. These evils have been exposed in vain for years 
to the Congress of the United States. The Senate District 
committee has recently decided to ignore them altogether. 
It is not at all concerned to discover that with surface 
tracks, in part illegal, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad dis- 
figures, obstructs and endangers one whole section of the 
city, and the Baltimore and Potomac road another. It 
reads with indifference the long list of persons killed or 
wounded at the single piece of illegal track known as the 
Baltimore and Ohio " Y." It hears only with amusement 
that, in the long strip of land over which the Baltimore and 
Potomac road is permitted by grace of Congress to rule with 
absolute power, the people of South Washington find for 
most of the time an impassable obstruction to travel and 
traffic, and, if entrance may be secured, a dangerous man- 
trap. It knows perfectly well, too, that in no city of the world, 
except in that one whose interests are in part confided to 
its vigilant protection, would the present condition of affairs 
be endured for a day. Yet the regulation of the railroads 
is a matter to be postponed indefinitely. Almost simulta- 
neously with this announcement to the railroads of an 
unlimited license to sponge upon public property, and to 
vex and injure the people of the city, comes the novel and 
startling statement from a hitherto valued champion of the 
District's rights in the Senate that Washingtonians, like the 
occupants of forts or arsenals to which the government has 
title, reside in the city and hold their property by suffer- 
ance, and may be evicted at any time at the pleasure of the 
government. A combination of these two propositions de- 
velops the pleasing doctrine that the descendants or assigns 
of those persons who gave in part and sold in part to the 
government the portion of the District which it owns, may 
be evicted by this donee or grantee from that part of the 
ground which was expressly retained, and which has been 
improved as private property ; while great corporations to 



28 

which government property has been gratuitously loaned, 
and which, without permission, have appropriated other 
public property, and use all to the injury of the city and its 
people, may not be evicted or disturbed. The property 
owners are Oklahoma trespassers; the law-breaking rail- 
roads are not. Undoubtedly both branches of the doctrine 
are unsound in point of law, but waiving all questions of 
legality, the two announcements might naturally suggest to 
Congress the effective scheme, beautiful in its simplicity, of 
quieting complaints against the railroads, and settling the 
whole complicated problem, by evicting the restless and dis- 
satisfied citizens, and turning over their propert} 7 to the all- 
absorbing railroads. 

When, if that contingency may be imagined, the sin- 
cere efforts of alleged champions of the public against cor- 
porations shall no longer be confined to a field of exercise 
in localities where the dear people to be tenderly guarded 
have the right to vote, and when the legislature of the Dis- 
trict shall pay more regard to the interests intrusted to its 
guardianship than to the wishes of wealthy politician-making 
corporations, a wise and statesmanlike plan of regulating 
the steam railroads of the city will be devised and enforced, 
which shall clear away surface tracks, check the illegal acts 
of these squatters upon government property, free the public 
reservations, and relieve two sections of the city from a 
burden which throttles, like the old man of the sea upon 
the shoulders of Sindbad. 

In connection with the broad plan of remedying rail- 
road evils, which will place a union station at the nearest 
point to the business center of the city that can be reached 
by tunneling or with small injury to public and private in- 
terests, a comprehensive S} r stem of local rapid transit by 
electric or cable railways will be provided, which shall give 
all parts of the District quick and easy access to such sta- 
tion or stations. It is evident that in the improved street 
railways of the future horses must give way to more rapid 
and less objectionable motors, that grooved rails must take 



29 

the place of the present abominations, and that the fran- 
chises to these corporations, no longer gifts, must become a 
source of public revenue, outside of that which is derived 
from them through just taxation of their tangible property. 
The obstacle will be met here, as in New York, of an 
appearance of unjust discrimination, if greater burdens for 
the benefit of the public are placed upon new lines than 
upon those in existence with which the former will come 
into competition. But the difficulty may also be overcome 
here in the same manner in which it is proposed to over- 
come it in that city. The competition or threatened com- 
petition of new roads with improved motive power will 
inevitably drive existing companies to ask from Congress 
the privilege of using the new motors. Some, too, will wish 
to extend their lines, and some which have been making un- 
authorized use of certain streets of the city will ask that 
their occupation of such streets be legalized. When these 
applications are made to Congress, without the necessity of 
recourse to the severe and unjust remedy of a general for- 
feiture of charters, the opportunity will be conveniently 
afforded of applying to existing roads the restrictions and 
exactions which are now found to be wise and proper in 
granting new franchises. 

Another function of the improved street railway system 
will be to render substantial assistance in furthering 

Washington's wonderful suburban development, 

a striking feature of the capital's recent history. A city 
nearly equal in size to the original Washington has been 
planned outside the present boundaries. New roads and 
streets have been laid out. Handsome houses have gone 
up, and so have the prices of lots. Fortunes have been 
made in the purchase, subdivision and sale of suburban prop- 
erty. The care of this infant Washington is a need of the 
present. It should be supplied in equitable proportion to 
its population and taxable values with city improvements. 
In time Washington will doubtless stretch a symmetrical 



30 

plan of streets and avenues over the whole District. The 
sooner the lines to which suburban growth may adapt itself 
are authoritatively laid down the better it will be for the 
future city. The destruction of one house which interfered 
with L'Enfant's plan of the original capital caused a his- 
toric rumpus. What a clash may be expected if the plan- 
ning of the annex to Washington, to conform as far as is 
practicable to the streets and avenues of the present city, is 
delayed until over the greater part of the District only the 
vexatious choice is given between a wholesale destruction of 
private improvements, made in good faith, and a departure, 
in respect to the size and direction of streets, from the general 
plan ! The task of reconciling public and private interests 
in this matter has already ceased to be an easy one, and 
every year adds to the difficulties. 

The development of this infant Washington is not of 
course to monopolize attention and revenue to the neglect 
of the present city. Large areas within the existing boun- 
daries, especially in the sections afflicted by surface railroad 
tracks and numerous grade crossings, require improvement 
and denser settlement. Then there are to be supplied all 
the current needs of a growing city, involving, for in- 
stance, the steady increase of the police force and of the 
number of schools to keep pace with the multiplication of 
those who are to be protected and educated. The columns 
of the local press, the resolutions of citizens' associations, 
and the reports of the District Commissioners show that 
these needs are neither few nor insignificant. 



31 



Some of Washington's Grievances. 



NO VOTES, YET NO GRIEVANCE? 



Washington Needs no Elective Franchise in Municipal Affairs — 
No Repeal of "Exclusive Legislation" Clause — But Right 
to Vote for Representative, Senator, and President. 



From the Washington Evening Star, March 10, 1888. 

The idea of withdrawing from state power and the con- 
trol of its residents a portion of territory to serve as the 
seat of government under the exclusive jurisdiction of the 
people of the whole Union, as represented by Congress, 
seems to have obtained a strong hold upon the minds of 
the founders of the Republic. Many desired to strengthen 
the notion of a Union by giving the general government 
an exclusive territory, a center of federal action, controlled 
by it alone. State jealousies had some influence in the 
matter. The jurisdiction of any one state over the seat of 
government would, it was thought, give that state, to some 
extent, control over the general government itself. Exclusive 
jurisdiction and the power to call out the militia would also, it 
was considered, enable Congress to protect itself in case of 
riot or other disturbance. The fact, now worn threadbare 
by constant allusion, was remembered, that Congress, while 
meeting at Philadelphia, October 21, 1783, had been in- 
sulted and forced to adjourn to Princeton. The opposition 
to the plan of giving Congress exclusive jurisdiction over 
the seat of government seems to have been feeble. No 
debate upon the clause is reported to have taken place in 
the Constitutional convention. Objection was made in 
the Virginia ratifying convention that the District might 
become an asylum for political criminals or violators of 
states' rights. But the clause was adopted without much 



32 

opposition. By its terms Congress was given the power of 
exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over this na- 
tional territory. The legislature of the Union has an author- 
ity over the District incompatible with the exercise of the full 
elective franchise by its citizens. Without an amendment 
to the Constitution Washington can never vote for Presi- 
dent or Senator or Representative. If there is a political 
grievance, the Constitution is responsible. The city's com- 
plaint against Congress is not that it has deprived residents 
of the right to vote, but that it has failed to take this dis- 
ability sufficiently into consideration in its treatment of 
the city. If the United States had attempted to assume 
no particular control over the capital, and the seat of gov- 
ernment as a city of Maryland had legislated for itself, and 
had improved and developed itself only in proportion to 
the means of its citizens, then the indifference of Congress 
and the frantic efforts of legislators to avoid a few hours' 
consideration of its affairs might have some ground of 
justification. But Washington protests against the appli- 
cation of a theory and practice which, in combination, have 
denied it the privileges while burdening it largely with the 
responsibilities of independence. 

In the performance of its duties as guardian of the capi- 
tal's welfare, four courses are open to Congress. First, it may 
leave the relations between the District and the general 
government unchanged, but give more time and considera- 
tion to the capital and its affairs, remodeling its laws in 
accordance with the wishes of its citizens and providing 
liberally for the improvement of its appearance, for its gen- 
eral development and for its relief from the heavy debt in- 
equitably imposed upon it. Congressmen should look upon 
themselves as the representatives of a national district as 
well as of their own local districts. It should be remembered 
that the so-called congressional appropriations for the capi- 
tal's ordinary expenses are not gifts or beggar's alms, but 
merely a disbursement of the District revenues, one-half 
coming from individual tax-paying citizens, the remainder 



33 

from the United States as the untaxed holder of one-half of 
all Washington property, and much should be done by the 
government beyond the contribution of this quota. If the 
capital is to be deprived of privileges which would belong 
to it as the city of its citizens, it should be made worth}' of 
admiration as the city of the United States, representing in 
miniature its growth in population, wealth and power. 

UNLIMITED ELECTIVE FRANCHISE IN MUNICIPAL CONCERNS. 

Secondly, Congress may give to the District local sover- 
eignty and the elective franchise to the limited extent which 
the Constitution will permit. It has been urged by many 
that Congress has the ability to delegate its power of general 
legislation ; that the exercise of exclusive authority does not 
forbid a choice of agencies ; that the government provided 
for the District should be assimilated to the theory of repub- 
lican institutions ; and that the natural right of men to gov- 
ern themselves should be recognized as far as that is possible. 
And to show that it was never intended by the framers of 
the Constitution to deprive any portion of the people of the 
United States of local representative government, the words 
of Madison in the 43d number of the Federalist are quoted. 
The other side of the question has been argued with equal 
ability, and the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia 
have adopted it. In Roach et al. vs. Van Riswick (Wash- 
ington Law Reporter, November 10, 1879), it was decided 
that Congress has no capacity under the Constitution to 
delegate its delegated powers by bestowing general legisla- 
tive authority upon the local government of the District, 
and an act of the so-called legislative assembly of the Dis- 
trict, upon which the suit was brought, was declared inop- 
erative and void. For the present, then, in the absence of 
an overruling decision by the Supreme Court of the United 
States, such a delegation of power is unconstitutional, and 
only the unsatisfactory privileges of a municipal corporation 
can be conferred. But experience has taught that if the de- 
cision in Roach against Van Riswick were reversed, and if 



34 

the most extensive powers of voting were bestowed which 
any reasonable construction of the Constitution can grant, 
the gift would be not merely valueless, but objectionable. 
The judiciary committee of the House of Representatives, 
in a report made June 1, 1874, stated the following truths: 
" In a strict legal sense there can be said to be no such 
thing as a local government of the District of Columbia, for 
there can be no government within the District independent 
of that of the federal government, and whatever local 
authority there may be now existing, or which may here- 
after be set up within the District, it can only be regarded 
legally as an agency of the federal government, and what- 
ever authority this local government may exercise, it must 
be regarded as the act of the United States through their 
delegated representative." The District legislature would 
in any event act under the restrictions suggested by these 
words. Its general laws would be mere petitions, void with- 
out the assent, express or implied, of Congress. A delegate 
without a vote has little weight in a " log-rolling " body 
like the House of Representatives. The other officers would 
be petty town officials, and a voice would still be denied the 
city in the choice of the executive and legislative officers of 
the nation. In short, the exercise of suffrage thus limited 
would be an expensive farce. Without representation suf- 
frage is of no value; and, shut out from the bodies which 
make its laws and impose taxes upon it, representation of 
the District under the Constitution in its present shape can 
be only a sham. 

It is extremely doubtful whether popular suffrage is 
desirable in the choice of those who are intrusted with 
purely municipal functions, even in cities where its adop- 
tion is not opposed by the peculiar objections which con- 
front it in its application to the affairs of Washington. Ex- 
perience and observation do not teach that a municipality 
which is reasonably well-governed will display wisdom by 
demanding a change of system in order to assimilate itself 
to ordinary American cities. The latter are notoriously 



35 

misgoverned. Incompetent and dishonest officials have 
been too often chosen in partisan contests, immense munici- 
pal debts have been contracted, and excessive taxation 
has been imposed. Statistics show that while state indebt- 
edness has decreased between the last two censuses, munici- 
pal indebtedness has vastly increased, far more rapidly than 
population and valuation, and its amount in American 
municipalities is now estimated at a billion dollars. The 
deplorable financial condition of so many of our large cities 
is due, in the main, to unlimited popular suffrage, which 
has given to non-taxpaying, irresponsible voters 

THE POWER TO EXPEND, EXTRAVAGANTLY AND CORRUPTLY, 

the money supplied by tax-payers. It has placed the con- 
tributors and non-contributors to a fund upon an equal foot- 
ing in the matter of deciding how and by whom the fund 
shall be disbursed. It has enabled the latter, under the 
guise of taxation, to make a division of the contributions of 
the former. It has legalized the virtual confiscation of ac- 
cumulated wealth by aggregated paupers. Under its work- 
ings, robbers at the head of organized bands of destitute and 
desperate followers, have been permitted to seize, through 
mere force of numbers, the purse of more than one city, and 
to spend its contents at pleasure. The intolerable misgov- 
erment of many American cities has not only caused the 
suggestion of such schemes of reform as the limitation of 
suffrage to tax-payers, and minority representation, but it 
has led even to the bold proposition that all power of self- 
government be withdrawn from these municipalities, and 
that the management of their affairs be intrusted to the 
state legislature — a plan which, if adopted, would place 
them in respect to their internal administration in a condi- 
tion similar to that of Washington. In theory the powers 
exercised by the officers of cities are by delegation from the 
people of the whole state, in whom the ultimate sovereignty, 
as modified by the Constitution of the United States, resides. 
In New York, from 1777 to 1821, the officers of muncipal 



36 

corporations were appointed by the governor and four sena- 
tors chosen every year by four subdivisions of the assembly. 
Instances of the intervention of the state government into 
the affairs of cities, amounting in some cases to indirect dis- 
franchisement, have not been lacking in later years. There 
are serious objections, however, to the plan of granting ex- 
clusive control over cities to the state government, and it is 
not likely that the proposition can muster many advocates. 
But the mere fact that the suggestion has been made indi- 
cates that the evils which our municipalities endure are so 
great that the condition of Washington is viewed by some 
as preferable. The capital may well hesitate before it de- 
mands a privilege which its possessors are eager to resign, 
before it seeks to bind upon its own shoulders the burden 
of which other cities are making desperate efforts to relieve 
themselves, before it asks, as a boon, the main source of 
municipal woes. If the doctrine were generally accepted 
that universal suffrage is demanded by republican princi- 
ples only in the choice of those officers who exercise purely 
governmental functions, and not in the selection of agents 
by municipal corporations to perform duties affecting pri- 
vate property interests, and if Congress might be depended 
upon to grant to the tax-payers of the District the financial 
administration of the capital, some of the objections against 
an elective system would be removed. But there is no prob- 
ability of such action by Congress. The same spirit wdiich 
would force republican forms of government to be observed 
in the District, though republican rights are not granted 
therewith, would deny a property qualification for voters. 
The municipal affairs of the city are now managed by a 
Commission appointed by the President, and compared with 
the manner and cost of the performance of similar duties in 
other cities the work is well and cheaply done. If this 
method of government should be abandoned, and the uni- 
versal-suffrage system adopted, there is no reason to believe 
that Washington would escape the maladministration which 
prevails in other large cities. The conditions which cause 



37 

popular suffrage to be baneful in the latter exist to a con- 
siderable degree at the capital, and in one or two respects 

WASHINGTON HAS ADDITIONAL DISADVANTAGES 

with which to contend. The character of the voting popu- 
lation of the city, though it would not be a proper ground 
of objection if it were proposed to invest the residents of the 
District with the full rights of American citizenship, may 
be noted when the evils of suffrage are offered without its 
substantial benefits. About one-third of the inhabitants of 
Washington are colored, and this number includes thous- 
ands of the worst as well as the best specimens of the race. 
In addition to the permanent colored element an army of 
recruits would be attracted by elections to the city from the 
farms of Maryland and Virginia, to be used as voting ma- 
terial by political " bosses," and to be supported as loafers, 
partly by the wages of politics, partly by charity and partly 
by jail nourishment. The floating population of non-tax- 
payers will always be large at the capital, where office- 
seekers most do congregate, but with the accessions that 
elections bring the solid citizens would almost certainly be 
overwhelmed. 

An objectionable result of the choice by general vote of 
minor officers only, with insignificant powers, is the small- 
bore politician developed by small-bore elections. In the 
states the politician may hope to rise, step by step, to the 
governorship of a wealthy, populous and powerful commun- 
ity, to a seat in the national legislature, or to the presidency. 
In Washington he must confine himself to petty affairs and 
limit himself by petty ambitions ; and, naturally, few able 
and upright men would be tempted by the prospect. 

The commission government, which a sham represen- 
tative system would displace, has the advantage of bringing 
the United States and the national capital into those close 
relations which were anticipated in the plans of our fore- 
fathers. The members of the commission are appointed by 



38 

the President, to whom they report, and the nominations of 
two of them are approved by the Senate. The Treasurer of 
the United States is treasurer of the District. Congress alone 
is responsible for all general legislation. The true relations 
of Washington to the general government are thus sug- 
gested at every turn. If the city were permitted to elect 
local officers and pass local laws it would remove itself to 
that extent from national consideration, members of Con- 
gress would be permitted fewer opportunities of learning 
their full responsibilities in respect to the nation's ward, 
while the privilege gained would have no compensating 
advantage. 

It is true that commission governments are not unob- 
jectionable, but it is believed that the most serious of their 
evils may be avoided more readily than those of the alter- 
native system. Among the possible dangers of such a 
government for Washington are two that are prominent : 
First, that the executive may appoint as commissioners, not 
bona fide citizens of the District, interested in its welfare 
alone, but his own favorites, on the score of personal friend- 
ship, or as a reward for political services. Secondly, that 
such commissioners, when appointed, will use the minor 
positions under their control as similar political rewards to 
aid the party or the political " boss " in whose interests they 
have been given office. If the city's government is ever 
debased into a mere political machine, a death blow will be 
given to the interests of the District. The capital is the 
ward, not of a party, but of a nation ; it requires the friendly 
legislation of both parties ; and to obtain such legislation 
its government must be non-partisan. The affairs of Wash- 
ington are in certain respects confided to the President and 
commissioners appointed by him as trustees. If President 
or commissioner takes advantage of this position to benefit 
himself, or a clique, or a political party, and is not in- 
fluenced solely by a consideration of the interests confided 
to his protection a sacred trust is betrayed. 



39 



Thirdly, Congress may propose an amendment to the 
Constitution 

EXTINGUISHING ITS OWN POWER OF EXCLUSIVE LEGISLATION 

and placing the residents of the District upon the same foot- 
ing in regard to all elections as the citizens of the several 
states. The prosperity of "Washington as the national capi- 
tal would be endangered by the grant of local sovereignty 
to its citizens. Even if the nation might be induced to sur- 
render the control of its property interests in the District 
entirely to the residents, which is hardly conceivable, it 
would not be willing to pay one-half of the expenses of the 
capital with no power of management in respect to its affairs, 
and with not even a voice in its government. But it is 
absolutely essential to the welfare of the city that its present 
financial relations to the United States shall be preserved. 
The manner of Washington's development renders it utterly 
unable to meet, unassisted, the expense of sustaining itself 
as a magnificent national capital. What was said in 1878, 
when the question was whether the government should pay 
a fixed proportion of District expenses, might be repeated if 
under any circumstances the attempt were made to with- 
draw the support then provided : " As in the beginning the 
federal city was without population or resources to which 
its founders could look for its development and improvement, 
so also at the present time it is wholly without the means 
either in property, commerce or manufactures, to meet the 
enormous outlays which the magnificence of the plan re- 
quires. One-half of its property, and the best half, is owned 
by the United States, and pays no taxes, and the other half 
is mortgaged for one-fourth of its value by a debt contracted 
in exhausting and paralyzing efforts to make it what its 
patriotic founders designed it to be — a national capital, 
worthy of the name it bears." If deprivation of suffrage is 
the only condition upon which citizens of the District are 
partially relieved from their heavy burdens, they evidently 



40 

prefer to remain " political slaves " rather than become bank- 
rupt freemen. 

The arguments, already recited, which led to the estab- 
lishment of an exclusively national district must also be 
weighed when it is attempted to reverse the decision then 
made. 

The sentiment which identifies the fate of the Union 
with that of the capital should not be disregarded. Wash- 
ington has planted the roots of its existence and prosperity 
in the spirit of American nationality. It has flourished in 
proportion as this spirit has been strong. The grand designs 
respecting it were neglected by those, not its enemies, who 
resented the substantial embodiment of a power superior to 
that of the state. It again revived when civil war developed 
the patriotic national sentiment, and Americans learned that 
the Union is a substantial something to love, to live for, and 
to die for. The bloodshed of the Revolution gave birth to 
the spirit of nationality and created the city ; the bloodshed 
of the civil war revived the spirit and regenerated the city. 
The imagination may conceive that the soul of the Union is 
enshrined in this exclusive territory, and that if ever its 
peculiar existence shall be extinguished the event will be a 
forerunner of the dissolution of the Union. 

Fourthly, retaining exclusive jurisdiction, Congress may 
propose 

A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT GIVING THE DISTRICT 
REPRESENTATION 

in the bodies which legislate for it and tax it, a voice as to 
the President, who is to appoint the commissioners to man- 
age its local affairs, and, in general, except as to the privilege 
of choosing town or county officers, to place the residents of 
the District upon the same footing as the citizens of the 
several states. 

A minor discrimination against inhabitants of the cap- 
ital which needs to be thus remedied is that which denies 
them the right of bringing suits in the federal courts in those 



41 

cases where the privilege is given to the citizens of a state, 
and which puts them before the national judiciary in a less 
favorable attitude than that of aliens. (Hepburn vs. Ellzey, 
2 Cranch., 445.) 

While the District is not a state, and while its citizens, in 
addition to the denial of the benefits of the federal courts, 
are forbidden representation, it is subject to direct federal 
taxation, although the Constitution says that ''representatives 
and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states 
of the Union according to their respective numbers." These 
words are held to furnish merely a rule of apportionment, 
and not to limit the power of taxation. (Loughborough vs. 
Blake, 5 Wheaton, 317.) The District paid its proportion, 
some $50,000, of the twenty-million direct tax of August 6, 
1861, the last of the four direct taxes. It has also paid into 
the national treasury from the commencement of the excise- 
tax law in 1862 $6,454,907.03, a larger amount than that de- 
rived from Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, 
South Carolina or Vermont. " Taxation without representa- 
tion" thus prevails at the capital. It is alleged, in justification, 
that the District (when nearly uninhabited) voluntarily re- 
signed its right of distinct representation, and irrevocably 
adopted the whole body of Congress (including its bitter 
enemies and its lukewarm friends) as the representatives of 
its interests. Washington was in existence only a few months 
when its residents began to bemoan their prospective dis- 
franchisement, their exclusion from participation in national 
elections. In a pamphlet concerning the " government of 
the territory of Columbia," published in 1801 by A. B. Wood- 
ward, it is said : " This body of people is as much entitled to 
the enjoyment of the rights of citizenship as any other part 
of the people of the United States. There can exist no neces- 
sity for their disfranchisement, no necessity for them to re- 
pose on the mere generosity of their countrymen to be pro- 
tected from tyranny ; to mere spontaneous attention for the 
regulation of their interests. They are entitled to a partici- 
pation in the general councils on the principles of equity and 



42 

reciprocity." From the beginning of the century, too, mem- 
bers of Congress who have viewed the condition of the capital 
with other emotions than that of indifference have either 
" felt their hearts bleed " over the enslaved condition of the 
people, or have denounced the disfranchised as selling their 
republican birthright for a mess of pottage. In a debate in 
the House, December, 1800, Representative Smilie said : 
" Not a man in the District would be represented in the 
government, whereas every man who contributed to the 
support of a government ought to be represented in it; 
otherwise his natural rights were subverted and he was left 
not a citizen but a slave. It was a right which this coun- 
try, when under subjection to Great Britain, thought worth 
making a resolute struggle for, and evinced a determination 
to perish rather than not enjo} 7 ." In 1803 the "unrepubli- 
can " condition of the District was again a matter of 
comment, and it was proposed to recede to Maryland and 
Virginia jurisdiction over the parts of the District originally 
ceded by them. John Randolph, Jr., in February of that 
year, said in the House : " I could wish, indeed, to see the 
people within this District restored to their rights. This spe- 
cies of government is an experiment how far freeman can be 
reconciled to live without rights ; an experiment dangerous 
to the liberties of these states. But inasmuch as it had 
been already made, inasmuch as I was not accessory to it, 
and as at some future time its deleterious effects may be arrested, 
I am disposed to vote against the resolution." A proposi- 
tion to recede the territory of Columbia outside of the limits 
of Washington, caused Representative Clark to say, in 1805, 
that he spoke of the inhabitants whenever he had occasion 
to allude to them with pity and compassion, and he most 
devoutly wished to see them placed in a condition more con- 
genial to his own feelings, and the feelings of every true 
lover of civil and political freedom. Alexandria was retro- 
ceded in 1846, her "galling disfranchisement" being re- 
ferred to in debate. Georgetown had sought retrocession in 
1838, but unsuccessfully. 



43 

Many of those who favored the exclusive jurisdiction of 
Congress over the District on the same grounds that caused 
such a District to be established were yet 

PREPARED TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION 

when the proper time should come, in order to give the peo- 
ple of the capital a representation in Congress, the body 
which, in theory, constitutes their legislature. As early as 
December, 1800, Representative Dennis said : " If it should 
be necessary the constitution might be so altered as to give 
them a delegate to the general legislature when their num- 
bers should become sufficient." A territorial delegate, which 
did not then exist, could not have been intended. The time 
suggested by Mr. Dennis seems to have now arrived. The 
difficulty of providing Congressional representation for an 
isolated collection of people, insufficiently numerous in them- 
selves to be entitled to a representative, is no longer to be 
met. The population of the District is increasing with ex- 
traordinary rapidity. In 1880 it numbered 177,638, and in 
1885, 203,459. The census of 1880 was the first enumer- 
ation which showed it to have acquired a population that 
would entitle it to ask admission as a state if it were upon 
the footing of an ordinary territory. The number of per- 
sons to be represented by each member of the House of 
Representatives is, according to the last apportionment, 
about 152,000. The House committee on territories reports 
in favor of granting representation to Montana, which, it 
thinks, will have 170,000 population next November; to 
Washington territory, which is expected to contain 100,000 
people at that time, and to New Mexico, which had 134,131 
persons in 1885. One representative in the House and one, 
at least, in the Senate, should be granted the District. This 
arrangement is found to be equitable when the population 
and growth of the several states are considered. The Dis- 
trict, by the showing of the census of 1880, already surpassed 
in point of numbers Nevada (62,265), Delaware (146,654), 
and Oregon (174,767); and the advantage over Delaware 



44 

and Nevada is likely to be retained. In addition to these 
three states, Colorado (194,649), Florida (267,351), Rhode 
Island (276,351), Vermont (332,286) and New Hampshire 
(346,984), had less than double the District's population, 
making the assignment of one Senator to the latter equitable. 

In view of the comparative rate of increase and other 
■considerations, the District is likely to be found in the future 
ahead of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Delaware, and, 
perhaps, Connecticut, of the original states, and Vermont 
and Nevada of the new states. 

The adoption of the fourth plan by Congress would be 
a compromise between granting only local, qualified suf- 
frage, which is highly objectionable to the District, and con- 
senting to absolute self-government, which involves a sur- 
render of national control over the capital, and to which 
the United States, as the owner of one-half the city, and 
the virtual payer of one-half its taxes, would never consent. 
The wisdom of this course is sustained by all the arguments 
which go to show that the constitutional power of " exclusive 
legislation " by Congress should not be hastily yielded, and 
also by those which maintain that taxation without repre- 
sentation and inequality of citizens before the law should 
not be allowed to exist. The District would be placed in 
certain respects on a level with the states. Taxed like 
them, it would have like them a voice in the disposition of 
the general taxes. It would not, however, stand upon pre- 
cisely the same footing with them, for the states are subor- 
dinated to the general government only in certain defined 
particulars, whereas the District would be subordinate in all 
respects. This inferiority would be indicated, it has been 
suggested, by giving the District 

ONE INSTEAD OF TWO SENATORS 

and by a corresponding reduction in its electoral vote. En- 
joying representation in Congress and participation in the 
choice of the President, who appoints its local officers, Wash- 
ington would resemble in its municipal government a city 



45 

which, after voting for the governor and legislature of a 
state, is managed by a commission appointed by the former 
and approved by the latter. Under this fourth plan the 
suggestions made in respect to the duty of members of Con- 
gress as the exclusive legislators for the capital would still 
be applicable ; the present financial arrangements between 
the District and the general government would be main- 
tained ; the expensive transportation of office-holding voters 
to the states from Maine to Florida and from New York to 
California would, after the abolition of the office-apportion- 
ment system, be avoided ; the rights of residents of the 
District as American citizens would be recognized in a 
manner which would inflict the smallest possible injury 
upon the interests of the city as capital of the United States, 
and this spot of national territority with all its patriotic 
associations would be preserved to the Union. 

If at the time of giving the District the substantial 
representation suggested it should also be decided that Con- 
gress can manage the minor concerns of the District more 
satisfactorily by modifying in details the present form of 
municipal government, such changes may then be con- 
veniently made. But every alteration should be based upon 
a full recognition, first of the absolute necessity of a retention 
by the general government of such representation in and 
control of the management of city affairs as will enable it to 
protect its vast interests here ; second, of the frightful warn- 
ing from the experience of other large cities against recourse 
to unlimited popular suffrage as a factor in the decision of 
purely municipal and financial matters ; and, third, of the 
vital importance to the District that its local government 
shall be non-partisan. 

It is conceded that the best method by which Congress 
can regulate the capital as a city may vary somewhat in 
details, with altering circumstances, but there is no urgent, 
present necessity for a change in this respect. The more 
important question is, Shall not the people of the District, 



46 

who now largely exceed the number of persons represented 
b} r each member of the House, be 

ADMITTED TO THE UNION 

as citizens of a quasi-state, and be granted representation 
in the national legislature, and the privilege of voting for 
President ? Without disputing for the present the proposi- 
tion, proved absurd by experience, that they do not need, 
as citizens of the District, distinct representation in Congress 
as a local legislature because they are represented in that 
capacity by all Senators and Representatives, do they not, 
as citizens of the United States, assembled in sufficient num- 
bers in a limited space and pajdng national taxes, require 
representation in the body which imposes and disburses 
these taxes ? 

The people of Washington do not wish an unlimited 
elective franchise in municipal concerns or a repeal of the 
" exclusive-legislation " clause, with a change of the financial 
relations between the city and the United States, and many 
of them, in view of the dangers to be faced in the discussion 
by Congress of changes of any description in the present 
government, will continue to favor the first or do-nothing 
policy on the part of Congress, which was unquestionably 
wisest as long as the fixed population of the District, not in 
government employ, was insufficient to entitle it to a repre- 
sentative in Congress, and which is still wisest so far as the 
municipal government is concerned. These citizens will 
doubtless for the reason suggested hesitate to ask the ad- 
ditional rights to be secured by this constitutional amend- 
ment. But while the asking and granting of these rights 
may be in various ways reasonably delayed, they can 
not be indefinitely postponed. Though representation in 
their national and local legislature, which alone makes laws 
for them and taxes them, and may send every man of them 
to war to be wounded or killed, be denied to the 225,000 
District residents of the present, will the same denial be 
given to the half million of the near future, or to the pros- 
pective million toward which figure as a goal the District's 
population is pressing ? 



47 



Some of Washington's Grievances. 



THE GOOD TIME COMING 



When These Grievances Shall Vanish — And Washington Shall 
Be Exalted — No Longer Neglected, Starved and Frightened 
— But Tenderly Fostered by its Proud Guardian. 



From the Washington Evening Star, March 17, 1888. 

As long as Washington is compelled to divert from the 
funds for its maintenance and development as the capital of 
the nation between one and two million dollars, paid each 
year in interest and to sinking fund, and the heavy debt 
thus indicated rests upon it, draining its resources, the 
growth of the city will be delayed, and the nation, retarded 
by its impecunious partner, will need to move slowly in the 
grand designs of capital making. But with the full adop- 
tion by Congress of the original and true idea of its duty 
toward the District in respect to the capital's financial con- 
cerns, and in the matter of general legislation for its benefit, 
a,nd in a trustee's protection of all its interests, whether in- 
vaded by persons or corporations, the city will flourish in 
far greater measure than during even the last decade. Thus 
favored the Washington of a not remote future will be still 
more distinctively a city of magnificent distances than at 
present. Though limited only by the boundaries of the 
District, it will be compactly knit together by a uniform 
system of streets and avenues, and by cable or electric 
railways, which shall utilize additional bridges across in- 
tervening waterways, such as Eastern Branch and Rock 
Creek, and bring the most distant parts of the new capital 
in close proximity to the business center. Or, as an alterna- 
tive to the bridging of Rock Creek in the city, that stream 



48 

may be diverted through a tunnel to hide its urban ugli- 
ness and to remove the cause of West Washington's 
isolation. 

SURFACE IMPROVEMENT OF THE DEVELOPED CAPITAL. 

The surface of the city will retain and develop present 
charms, and be freed from present defects. Overhead poles 
will go, and overhead wires will be buried. A comprehen- 
sive system of underground conduits will accommodate all 
pipes which need to be conducted below the surface, and will 
confine not only telegraph and telephone wires, but also an 
adequate supply of electric-light wires, for Washington's 
broad streets are to be brilliantly illuminated at night, and 
the city will not be entirely content even with the better and 
cheaper gas to be secured for it by Senator Spooner. The 
underground Washington, like the surface city, will be 
planned and constructed with wise forethought, so that con- 
tinual and extensive excavation of the streets may be avoided. 
Warning will be taken from the experience of New York 
city, in respect to which Mayor Hewitt, in a recent message, 
said : " During the year 1887, 98 miles of gas mains were 
laid, 25.58 miles of trench opened for electrical sub-ways, 
4,791 lineal feet of steam pipes laid, 3,790 feet of salt-water 
pipes laid, 17,973 excavations made for house connections, 
15.42 miles of water pipe laid, 7.12 miles of sewer built and 
many miles of excavations made for repairs of water pipes 
and sewers, making a sum total so appalling as to furnish 
no analogy except in the results of a vast earthquake." 

In this Washington of the future the periodical battle 
over appropriations for street improvements will lose much 
of its customary desperation, for Congress by liberal lump 
appropriations for the benefit of its exclusive property, the 
city streets, will have at least provided the seven millions 
needed for such improvements in the present city ; and the 
" neglected sections " will, in great measure, cease from 
troubling, and the weary apportioners of appropriations for 
such purposes will, comparatively speaking, be at rest. The 



49 

city of asphalt pavements will be the paradise of bicyclists, 
carriage users and equestrians, and sidewalks fit to be trod, 
showing the same mercy to man that concrete pavements 
show to beasts, will replace the present mud-bespattering 
aggregations of loose bricks. The street-cleaning system will 
clean the streets. 

Thousands of additional trees will contribute to the 
city's health and beauty. Attractive residences, with the 
same pleasing variety of architecture that distinguishes those 
which now adorn Washington, will ornament every eligible 
site in the expanded capital. New public buildings will 
delight the eye at every turn. They will not be so con- 
structed as to display to all the world a penurious builder 
with a contempt for architectural attractiveness, and will 
not be planted upon the reservations to clog the city's lungs 
with brick and mortar, to disfigure the capital's grand design, 
and to torture the spirit of poor L'Enfant, already too much 
vexed. Among them will be a District government build- 
ing and a local post-office. In prudent deference to the 
deep-rooted but contradictory convictions of the owners of 
eligible sites, the exact location of these buildings will not 
be here specified, but it may be stated that the local post- 
office will not then be housed with the Post-Office Depart- 
ment of the general government, to which it seems likely 
to be fastened in the near future. 

Washington's beauty as 

THE CITY OF PARKS 

will ripen to perfection. There will be the same profusion 
of small, multiform reservations sprinkled over the enlarged 
city at the intersection of streets and avenues, displaying all 
the adornments that nature and the gardener's and sculp- 
tor's art can supply. Larger parks will not be wanting. In 
the southern part of the city the Mall, cleared of railroad 
tracks, and enlarged by the addition of several hundred 
acres of reclaimed flats, will make a magnificent park, and 
furnish a famous driveway by which the visitor, having 



50 

swiftly traversed historic Pennsylvania avenue from the 
President's House to the Capitol, may return to his starting- 
point by way of the Botanical Gardens, Armory Lot, Smith- 
sonian Grounds, Agricultural Grounds, Monument Lot and 
White House Grounds, winding through trees, flowers and 
well-kept turf, and passing buildings of great public inter- 
est, historic monuments and statues. To the other end of 
the city Rock Creek Park will furnish a breathing place, 
with its thousand acres of surface, its beautiful, winding 
stream, and its wild and diversified scenery. 

In the future Washington the Potomac River will be 
utilized to its full capacity for the benefit of the trade, 
health, and pleasure of the city. The present impediment 
to easy access to the river front, the impassable barrier of a 
belt of surface railroad tracks, illegally occupied by stand- 
ing cars, will be sent to join the obstacles of the past — a 
pestiferous canal, a criminal-infested Mall, and high bluffs 
which needed to be pierced. The local rapid transit system 
will bring the Potomac within easy reach. The good harbor 
to be secured when the flats are filled will meet the demands 
of the city's growing commerce. Without its malarious 
marshes, the quickened river will cut large slices from the 
District's death rate. The upper Potomac, with its narrow, 
rocky channel and rugged scenery, will delight the fisher- 
man ; just above the city the broadening stream, with the 
landings and houses of local boat clubs perched pictur- 
esquely upon the wooded banks, will allure in ever-increas- 
ing numbers the oarsmen and their friends, and on the 
lower Potomac the fifteen or twenty excursion steamers of 
the present will be vastly multiplied to furnish fresh air 
cheaply in the heat of summer and to bring joy to children 
and the poor, and despair to the doctors, druggists, and 
undertakers. Public floating baths will further contribute 
to the city's health. Handsome and substantial bridges — 
perhaps a memorial bridge connecting with a broad avenue 
leading to Mount Vernon — will furnish communication with 
Virginia, and the Long Bridge, that shabb} r , flood-threaten- 



51 

ing nuisance of the present, will be only a disagreeable 
reminiscence. 

In that glittering future the local offices of the District 
will be bestowed upon District citizens in faithful fulfillment 
of the promises of party platforms. The people of the Dis- 
trict will be no longer stunted citizens of the United States, 
but will enjoy representation in both houses of Congress as 
their legislature, and a voice in the selection of their execu- 
tive, the President. The government clerks will not be 
vexed with deceptive examinations for promotion, intended 
to discharge rather than to promote, but with the victory of 
true civil service reform and the abolition of the apportion- 
ment system, which distributes offices, as bandits' plunder, 
&mong the states in proportion to their strength, the efficient 
clerks will be freed from the haunting terror of unreason- 
able dismissal, and will become a desirable and reasonably 
permanent element of the city's house-building and voting- 
population. 

LINES UPON WHICH THE CITY WILL EXPAND. 

Washington will be the recognized and only meeting 
place of the American people in convention assembled. 
In 1887 it drew to itself gatherings like the International 
Medical Congress, the National Drill of the militia, and 
innumerable other conventions, including the representatives 
of such varied activities as the shippers of the country, the 
woman suffragists, the laundrymen, the carriage makers, 
the agricultural scientists, the postal clerks, the school super- 
intendents, and the Evangelical Alliance. With so favorable 
a start in the desired direction what may not be expected 
in this respect from the future, which will bring to Wash- 
ington increased attractions to tempt visitors and enlarged 
accommodations for the meetings of representative bodies. 

The city will not be pre-eminent in wholesale trade, 
but long rows of handsome business blocks, in the line of 
present development, will fully supply all local needs. Nor 
will the great manufacturing centers of the country find in 



52 

Washington a dangerous competitor. According to the 
census of 1880, Washington was then among the twenty 
leading cities of the United States in manufactures, with 
971 establishments, and products for the year valued at 
$11,882,316 ; and it has an excellent water power at George- 
town, and cheap and easy access to the coal fields. But 
the capital will never lead in the handling of iron, pork, 
wheat or cotton. Modelling after Paris rather than Pitts- 
burg, it will doubtless develop the various branches of light 
and clean manufacturing, which, with the departmental 
workshops, will give employment to many and make profit- 
able returns, without interfering by noises or smells, with 
the capital's attractions as a residence city. In the latter 
capacity, Washington will distance every competitor. To 
live at Washington, not to die at Paris, will become the 
American aspiration. 

As an educational center the city will also be pre- 
eminent. George Washington believed in and favored the 
establishment of a national university at the capital, selected 
a site for it and added works to faith by contributing stock 
for its endowment, which afterward, however, unfortunately 
became worthless. The reasons he gave for the location of 
the university at this point apply at the present time, and 
will prevail in the future with the result of giving the city 
a series of universities in place of the one which Washing- 
ton proposed. It is in the nature of a special education to 
pass at the seat of government the years of greatest activity 
in acquiring knowledge. Nowhere else on the continent 
will the student of science or of law find in museums and 
libraries such treasures for his enjoyment. With the in- 
stitution upon which Mr. Corcoran lavished a million and 
a half dollars in his life, and $100,000 at his death, as a 
foundation, a thorough and admirable system of art instruc- 
tion will be developed and become a notable feature of the 
educational facilities furnished by the capital. The vast 
national library, conveniently arranged and easy of access 
in the immense structure to be erected for its accommodation, 



53 

bringing to light the accumulated treasures of learning, now- 
half hidden and inaccessible at the Capitol, will materially 
aid Washington to become, as it must become, the home 
not only of the nation's students but of its authors. With 
Parisian light manufactures and the factories of the govern- 
ment departments 1o give employment to thousands of 
people, and with the constant accession of residents to the 
capital as the political, educational, scientific, literary, and 
art center of the republic, and the leading residence and 
"show" city of the continent, Washington, catching step 
with the nation in its forward march, will increase its pre- 
sent extraordinary percentage of growth in population, and, 
leaving the quarter-million mark, will stride quickly to its 
primary goal of half a million. 

Evidently the Washington of 1900, on its hundredth 
anniversary as the capital, enjoying during the last part of 
the century the tender regard of its guardian, the nation, 
will be viewed with pride and affection in Uncle Sam's 
household, and luxuriating in solicitous attention, much 
money and good laws, will forget as completely as it can 
the miseries of its early years, in which the members of the 
national family were disposed to pronounce it " a disappoint- 
ment to its parents, a discredit to the fond opinions of its 
worthy god-fathers and god-mothers, and an eye-sore to all 
its relatives to the remotest degree of consanguinity." 



54 



At the Annual Banquet of the Board of Trade in i8gi, Mr. 
Theodore IV. Noyes responded to the toast, "The Ce?ite?iary 
of Washington City, ' ' as follows : 

As this double commemoration suggests, the American 
patent system and the District of Columbia narrowly escaped 
being twins. For several days, culminating to-night, we 
have eulogized the first of these approximate twins. We have 
ascribed the vast national advance of the century in large 
part to this birth of a century ago. We have ranked among 
the typical heroes of the age the wonder workers whom this 
infant, now grown to manhood, has fostered. We consider 
that no home at the capital, in marble or granite, can be too 
spacious or too handsome to be suitable for its accommoda- 
tion. In short, we of Washington say to the inventors : We 
have praised your hundred-year-old infant and honored its 
birthday. There is reciprocity in these things. It is time 
that Columbia's baby was dandled and petted ; and as one 
of the nurses of this infant to-night I propose that we give 
our baby a show. 

THE DISTRICT A CENTURY AGO. 

When the District corner-stone was laid, thriving George- 
town was its nucleus of settlement on one side of the river 
and Alexandria or Belle Haven on the other. The site of 
Washington itself, a plain, fringed by gradually sloping 
heights, was a series of pastures, marshes, patches of culti- 
vated ground, and hills green with many trees. It was pleas- 
ing to the eye and well adapted to its destined purpose, but 
those sections now most desirable, both for business and resi- 
dence purposes, were then the least attractive. The river 
front was the choicest portion of the city, if the opinions of 
the earliest purchasers are considered. Capitol Hill was a 
dense forest, scarcely touched by the woodman's axe. Penn- 
sylvania avenue was a deep morass covered with alder 
bushes. Massachusetts avenue, in the now fashionable 



55 

northwest, was a bog, undrained in part, as late as 1862, in 
which year Anthony Trollope, the English novelist, waded 
along it knee-deep through snipe grounds. Upon this founda- 
tion the capital ol to-day has been built — the modern Wash- 
ington, the focus of national politics, the great gathering 
place of the people in conventions assembled, with its quarter 
of a million of population, rapidly increasing and spreading 
the capital over the whole of the present District ; a city 
sustained, approved, and adorned by the annual expenditure 
of more than $5,000,000 ; with a clean and economical non- 
partisan municipal government, a marvel in this respect 
among great American cities ; with surface remodeled ; with 
more smooth streets than any other city in the world; 
with enterprising business houses, relieving Washington 
from dependence upon its great commercial neighbors ; with 
manufactures, not imposing, but respectable, that caused 
Washington, according to the census of 1880, to rank among 
the twenty leading American cities ; with manufacturing 
establishments that have more than doubled in number since 
1880, notwithstanding the design has been to retain Washing- 
ton's pre-eminence as a residence city by encouraging only 
light and clean manufacturing ; with broad streets shaded 
for several hundred miles with nearly 70,000 trees, destined 
to make Washington the forest city; with attractive sub- 
urban drives, including those which traverse the recent grand 
acquisition of Rock Creek Park, with its winding stream and 
its wild and diversified scenery ; with parks and reservations, 
given a picturesque beauty by shrubbery and abundance of 
foliage, statuary, fountains and flowers, and with costly 
dwellings, showing the most varied and pleasing architecture, 
springing up in rapid succession, where Trollope sunk knee- 
deep in mud. 

IN TWENTY YEARS. 

The greater part of this transformation has been accom- 
plished within the last twenty years. The wretched condition 
of the capital for three-fourths of a century is attested by all 
descriptions. In connection with the gift to it of nearly 



56 

three-fourths of the soil of Washington, in order to sell lots 
carved from this gift, the nation promised that Washington 
should be the permanent seat of government, and pretended 
that this permanent capital would be improved at national 
expense without regard to the scanty population that would 
be at first attracted to it. Having secured this magnificent 
donation and pocketed the proceeds from the sale of lots the 
nation utterly failed to meet its promises. It frequently 
threatened to remove the capital, which meant, of course, 
the death of Washington. It practically abandoned the work 
of street improvement and capital-making to the scanty resi- 
dent population. There was no wonder that the District 
grew slowly. 

The nation has now returned halfway to the original and 
appropriate idea of the federal city. This guardian, who for 
three-fourths of a century was unfaithful to his trust, now, 
without making the slightest restitution for the wrongs of 
the past, shares the expenses of the ward whom he equitably 
bound himself in the beginning to support — and some men 
call it charity ! The people of the District are not subject to 
this or any other reproach upon their public spirit, so far as 
their relations to the nation are concerned. They have 
risked life and shed blood in every national war. They fur- 
nished the first volunteers, and supplied more troops in 
excess of their quota in the civil struggle than any state ex- 
cept one. They have paid their proportion of every national 
tax, direct and indirect. They have contributed in propor- 
tion to population far more than any other American com- 
munity for national purposes. They gave to the nation 
five-sevenths of the soil of Washington — an acquisition pro- 
nounced by Jefferson " really noble." They thus supplied 
a fund from which most of the original public buildings were 
erected. Those that since then have been constructed at 
national expense are offset by attractive homes aggregating 
millions of dollars in value with which they have adorned 
the city and swelled its taxable property. Nearly all the 
work of street improvement and capital-making, which for 



57 

three-fourths of a century was done, was done by them. 
From 1790 to 1878, according to the report of a Secretary of 
the Treasury, they expended $14,000,000 more than the 
United States in this, the nation's task, in addition to $25,- 
000,000 spent on local government, schools, and for other 
municipal purposes. Under this burden they worked them- 
selves into virtual bankruptc} 7 in 1835, and so in recreating 
the city after 1870 the main expense of the achievement was 
represented by the grievous debt of some $20,000,000. In 
both cases they took upon themselves national burdens, and 
were led by public-spirited motives, as the Senate committee 
reported in 1835, into expenditures which did not properly 
belong to them. 

They are none the less public-spirited, patriotic citizens 
because they owe no allegiance to a state. Their city has 
planted the roots of its existence and prosperity in the spirit 
of American nationality, and has flourished as that spirit has 
been strong. For themselves, they are Americans or they are 
nothing ; the people of No Man's land ; men without a coun- 
try. It is well for the nation that their Americanism is in- 
tense in proportion to its concentration, for that which lies 
next to the heart of the republic must be flesh of its flesh, 
pulsating with its warmest, richest life blood, or it will be a 
canker, collecting alien poisonous matter and eating at the 
nation's vitals. 

THE DISTRICT'S SECOND CENTURY. 

In the District's second century it will keep step in every 
respect with the progress of the nation ; it will be the re- 
public in miniature. In every branch of municipal develop- 
ment, whether attractiveness, health, trade, commerce, con- 
venience, or comfort is the aim, the city will be made a 
model. With the republic's intellectual growth there will 
be a corresponding increase in the capital's importance as 
the brain centre from which influences in every branch of 
learning, in science and art, in education, in literature and 
politics, flow to every corner of the nation. The fact will 



58 

also be fully recognized that trees and parks and streets, and 
structures of granite and marble, do not alone suffice to con- 
stitute the ideal capital. There must be men full of the 
national spirit and fit, from favoring conditions, to show- 
forth the American character in the blaze of the capital to 
the inspection of the world. 

And when all possible wonders have been wrought in 
the inanimate capital its people will be considered. They 
will be relieved from the burden of ancient laws, utterly un- 
fit for a modern community, that cling about their necks 
and choke them like the old man of the sea on the shoulders 
ofSinbad. Injurious discriminations in all respects will be- 
removed. The District has been pronounced a state under 
the treaty with France, a construction conferring privileges 
on aliens, but not a state under the Constitution, whose peo- 
ple can sue in the federal courts. The Supreme Court of 
the United States says in express terms that we stand in a 
more unfavorable attitude toward the national judiciary 
than aliens. The District is a state when direct taxes are 
to be collected, but not a state when representatives are 
apportioned, though the Constitution couples the two 
things. 

In the District's second century, when its population 
numbers half a million or a million, it will be not merely 
a state when burdens are imposed, but sometimes, at least, 
without radical change in the municipal government, a state 
when privileges are bestowed. In the good time to come 
the Washingtonian as well as Washington will be exalted. 
Nativity at the capital of the proud republic of ancient 
times was a world-wide honor. To be a Roman was to be 
greater than a king. Birth at the capital of the modern 
republic, far greater than that which ruled from the Seven 
Hills, will be the just cause of a profounder pride than that 
which found expression in the words, " I am a Roman." 

SAID A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 

The orator at the laying of the District corner-stone one 
hundred years ago petitioned and prophesied : " From this 



59 

stone may a superstructure arise whose glory, whose magnifi- 
cence, whose stability, unequalled hitherto, shall astonish the 
world." 

Upon the threshold of the District's second century we 
can do no better than to repeat this prayer and prophecy, so 
suggestive of the bright anticipations concerning the federal 
District which prevailed at its creation. We sometimes hear 
lofty reflections concerning the narrow views of the founders 
of the republic. In respect to the capital we shall do well 
if we fulfill the hopes, prophecies and anticipations of the 
forefathers and not prove narrower than they. It was their 
idea that Washington should be a federal city, developed by 
the nation and subject to its control ; but it was not their 
idea that it should be without people. Its grand framework 
indicates the expectation of a large population. Washing- 
ton's imagination covered the fair fields and wooded hills of 
his namesake city with the homes of a numerous, busy and 
happy people, a people not to outward appearance aliens, 
politically, and less than aliens judicially, but clothed with all 
American rights not absolutely inconsistent with the foster- 
ing control by the nation of the national capital. He pre- 
dicted that the city of the nation a century thence, if the 
country kept united, would be, " though not as large as Lon- 
don, yet of a magnitude inferior to few others in Europe." 

One hundred years ago a great mind conceived the idea 
of a statue of perfect symmetry and beauty. This idea was 
impressed upon the snowy whiteness of the heart of a huge 
block of marble and the statue's outlines lay hid beneath the 
stone's rough and discolored surface. For a century at in- 
tervals men have worked with drill and blast, with pick and 
chisel, to reach the heart of this rocky mass and to expose 
to sunlight and the eyes of men the perfect statue. Stroke 
by stroke the statue is uncovered. Inch by inch it rises in 
dazzling and perfect loveliness from all that is coarse and 
rude and ugly in the stone and earth of its surroundings, as 
the goddess of beauty rose in days of old from the rough 
gray surface of the ocean. The century-old ideal of Wash- 



60 



ington is fast becoming real, tangible, visible. It is for us 
of the republic's second century to give the finishing touches 
to the work designed one hundred years ago. Let no blunder- 
ing chisel mar the delicate outlines of the developing statue 
whose beauty, half concealed, half exposed, assures to 
America and the world a perfect embodiment of the ideal 
capital. 



61 



Welcome G. A. R. 



From the Washington Evening Star, September 19, 1892. 

Washington greets the Grand Army of the Republic ! 

This is not the first time that the capital has warmly 
welcomed the soldiers of the Union. When in those anxi- 
ous April days of incipient war Pennsylvania for the east 
with partly armed militia, and Minnesota for the west with 
a company of regulars hastened to reinforce the District vol- 
unteers in defense of the nation's city, all of loyal Washing- 
ton gave hearty and grateful greeting to friends in need. 
When only a day later the volunteers of the sixth Massa- 
chusetts regiment, thoroughly organized and well equipped, 
forced their way with bloodshed through riotous Baltimore 
and entered the city with the marks of conflict in behalf of 
the capital still upon them, that enthusiastic welcome was 
repeated and redoubled. And when after a week of suspense 
and mortal apprehension, the capital saw the seventh New 
York regiment with glittering bayonets and flying flags 
march up Pennsylvania avenue to the inspiring sound of 
martial music it saluted these fine soldiers as the forerun- 
ners and representatives of the nation already in arms in 
its defense. Anxiety was swept away in an instant by this 
conclusive manifestation of the people's inflexible mandate : 
" The Union and the Union's city must and shall be pre- 
served ! " And the cheering of thousands, wild with joy, 
gave inadequate expression to the heartfelt welcome with 
which Washington greeted this advance guard from the vast 
army of its volunteer defenders. The scene was repeated 
when in 1864, Early threatened feebly-defended Washing- 
ton, and Gen. Wright with two divisions of the sixth corps 
hastened in the very nick of time from the Potomac through 
the city to the relief of the menaced fortifications in the 
northern suburbs. And when at the close of the war the 



62 

Army of the Potomac and Sherman's army of the west 
marched in grand review on successive days up Pennsyl- 
vania avenue, Washington, through their deeds the assured 
capital of a united republic, saluted these heroes with wav- 
ing flags and patriotic songs and enthusiastic cheering, and 
covered with garlands of flowers many participants in the 
great procession. 

Now the soldiers of the Union again tread in martial 
•array the streets of the capital and again Washington greets 
them with a welcome feebly and inadequately expressed in 
decorations, in illuminations, in music, in varied and 
hearty hospitality — a welcome which contains within itself 
the aggregated warmth and enthusiasm and gratitude of all 
these greetings of the past. As it gladly hailed its soldier 
visitors in detachments during the war, so now it rejoices to 
receive them in the mass through their representatives of 
the Grand Army. Protector and protected after the lapse of 
nearly thirty years salute each other, and naturally the 
handshaking is hearty, the welcome a royal one. 

It is not alone, however, a natural gratitude for services 
rendered at the time of the war which causes Washington 
to be keenly appreciative of its present visitors. The 
soldiers did more than defend and preserve the capital. For 
this very labor of protection aroused a national interest in 
and regard for the thing protected, that had been hitherto 
lacking. The capital was not only saved, but since the war 
and through the war's influence it has been fostered and de- 
veloped and made in appearance a seat of government 
worthy of the nation. 

What the people fought for and defended the people 
came to love, and from this affection grew the determination 
to permit the capital to remain no longer a national humil- 
iation but to cause it to become instead a source of national 
pride. Washington greets the Grand Army with double 
gratitude as its physical preserver against armed forces, and 
as the representative of that patriotic national sentiment, 
revived and nourished by the war, upon which the pros- 



63 

perity and even the very existence of the capital largely 
depend. 

The veterans in their turn have reason to revisit with 
lively emotions the capital which they defended and to re- 
spond feelingly to the city's greeting. Washington was the 
focal point of the struggle. In the chess game of civil war 
the capital was the Union king, often checked, but never 
checkmated, threatened again and again by the enemj^'s 
queen, the fine Army of Northern Virginia under Lee, dis- 
turbed by the demonstrations and achievements of the adver- 
sary's Presbyterian bishop, Stonewall Jackson, and most 
seriously menaced by the eccentric and rapid movements 
of the enemy's cavalry knight. The soldier takes in the 
capital the natural interest in that for which he has fought, 
upon which his anxious thoughts have centered. Here, too, 
are individual associations. Here thousands were con- 
verted from raw recruits into soldiers, and camp and drill 
ground are to be eagerly revisited. Here thousands lay 
wounded in the hospitals, and the sites of these structures 
are clothed for many with sad but abiding associations. 
Here is the spot in the Capitol building where one spread 
his blanket ; here is all that remains of the old fort in which 
many days full of pleasant and thrilling memories were 
spent ; here is the house which opened wide its hospitable 
•doors to another when dejected, weary, foot-sore and rain- 
drenched he dragged himself through the streets of Wash- 
ington after the Bull Run disaster, and here is the 
■magnificent avenue up which he marched amid the cheering 
of the people with troops to beat off the enemy from threat- 
ened Washington, or with 150,000 comrades in the joy and 
pride of final victory in the grand review. Here in the 
War Department and the museums are trophies and relics 
of the war ; here are monuments to a number of the old 
commanders, and here, full of mournful interest, are the 
buildings associated with the assassination of the martyred 
President, cemeteries containing thousands of the soldier 
dead and tombs of such leaders as Sheridan and Logan. 



64 

In revisiting the sites of the extensive and costly forti- 
fications which were constructed about Washington the 
veteran will find that the influences of peace have almost 
entirely conquered the formidable armament of war. The 
rain and the wind have crumbled the threatening piles of 
earth, nature has thrown over the signs of man's prepara- 
tion for mortal combat a mantle of grass and vines, shrubs 
and bushes, and, if the sword has not been beaten into the 
plowshare, at least the woodwork of grimly menacing forts 
has been converted into fire wood or the building material 
of negro shanties. Upon the very spot occupied some thirty 
years ago by cannon the unconscious picnicking party may 
lunch with merrymaking. 

The city itself then resounded with the tread of march- 
ing regiments, the rumble of supply wagons and of ambu- 
lances bearing the wounded or coffins wrapped in flags, the 
shrill sound of the fife, the roll of the drum and the roar of 
cannon at the navy yard artillery camp and the arsenal. 
Its encircling hills were dotted with white tents and floating 
flags, its public buildings were hospitals, soldiers' quarters 
or army provision depots. Mounted sentries were seen at 
the corners of the streets with drawn sabers, barracks 
appeared everywhere and military huts and military tents 
were pitched in the dust or mud of the unbuilt area. From 
the city, as well as from the forts, bristling with cannon, that 
crowned every eminence, all notable signs of belligerency 
have disappeared. 

As at the capital, which is the nation in miniature, 
peace has conquered war, and the indications of hatred and 
combat and fratricidal bloodshed have been obliterated, so 
from the reunited nation itself, from the minds and hearts 
of men, may all traces of the prejudices and passions of the 
war be soon effaced ! 

It is not in the disappearance of military features alone 
that the veteran will note a change in Washington. At the 
outbreak of the war East Washington was in the main a 
broad expanse of barren plain. South from the Capitol were 



65 

hovels and brick kiln excavations. South Washington in 
general was an island cut off from the main city by a fester- 
ing canal and the mall, which was then the lurking place 
of criminals. In the northwest beyond 7th street and be- 
tween M and Boundary streets there were swamps and com- 
mons and patches of meadow. Cows, swine, goats and geese 
had the freedom of the city. Anthony Trollope, who visited 
Washington in 1862, like Tom Moore, Mrs. Trollope and 
Charles Dickens, who preceded him, gives an unfriendly but 
not imaginative description of the city. " Washington," he 
says, " is but a ragged, unfinished collection of unbuilt, broad 
streets, as to the completion of which there can now, I imag- 
ine, be but little hope. Of all places that I know it is the 
most ungainly and the most unsatisfactory." Trollope seems 
to have conceived an especial spite against Massachusetts 
avenue, which is now one of the finest residence streets in 
the city, and the vigor of his assaults justifies the suspicion 
that he was sent on some wild goose chase and found the 
mud of that street particularly disagreeable. " Massachusetts 
avenue runs the whole length of the city and is inserted on 
the maps as a full-blown street about four miles in length. 
Go there and you will find yourself not only out of town, 
away among the fields, but you will find yourself beyond 
the fields in an uncultivated, undrained wilderness. Tuck- 
ing your trousers up to your knees you will wade through 
the bogs; you will lose yourself among wide hillocks; you 
will be out of the reach of humanity. * * * A stranger 
finds himself in the position of being sent across the country 
knee deep in mud, wading through snipe grounds, looking 
for civilization where none exists." 

In place of the straggling country village, with zig-zag 
grades, no sewerage, unimproved reservations, second-rate 
dwellings, streets of mud and mire and wretched sidewalks, 
which the Union soldier and Anthony Trollope saw when 
Washington was a camp and hospital, there is now spread 
before our soldier visitors the magnificent city of to-day. 

The capital, more than trebling its population since 



66 

1860, has not only built up its ragged collection of unfin- 
ished streets, and the bogs and swamps and commons that 
dotted and surrounded them, but has spread settlement over 
the then encircling heights on the northwest and northeast 
and the duty and responsibility of planning and developing 
a new Washington, more extensive in area than the orig- 
inal city, which shall not be inharmonious and discreditable 
when compared with the work of the forefathers, is imposed 
upon the legislators of to-day. The streets of depthless mud 
and blinding dust are now in large measure concreted and 
fringed with thousands of shade trees. In the matter of 
smooth streets the capital is foremost among the cities of the 
world. Broad Pennsylvania avenue, with its rough cobble- 
stones of the war times, has been converted through the 
skillful use of asphalt into the finest parade street that any 
capital can boast, the veteran treads concrete instead of 
cobblestones, and when the work of erecting public build- 
ings along it in accordance with the original plan, already 
revived and initiated, shall be fully accomplished, and its 
surroundings thus acquire suitable dignity and impressive- 
ness, this historic avenue will rival in all respects the 
famous streets of the capitals of the old world, whether the 
boulevards of Paris, Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Ring 
Strasse of Vienna or Andrassy street in Buda-Pesth. Mas- 
sachusetts avenue, where Trollope floundered in the mud, 
displays to-day as a specimen residence street of the modern 
AVashington buildings of the most varied and attractive 
architecture. Without a street car at the outbreak of the 
war the District now has over a hundred miles of street 
railway, which promise soon to furnish through the general 
adoption of the best forms of improved motor, a model local 
rapid transit system to the capital. Then pumps and 
springs supplied the city with water ; now through the great 
aqueduct, largely built while the war was in progress, the 
waters of the upper Potomac are lavished upon Washing- 
ton. The then unfinished public buildings have been com- 
pleted, and, with additional structures which have been 



67 

erected, adorn the city. The stub which represented the 
Washington monument has become the towering, impres- 
sive shaft of to-day. Intellectual progress has been as 
marked as material development, and Washington no longer 
a mere political camp ground, is becoming the educational, 
literary and scientific center of the republic. The reserva- 
tions and parking, then neglected and unkempt, the browsing 
place of the cow and the wallowing place of the hog, have 
been improved and adorned, and now in a number of them 
the statues of men who were then struggling to save the 
Union and the capital, at the head of other men who are 
present here to-day, stand out in marble or bronze in a 
picturesque setting of flowers and rich foilage. Each vet- 
eran, as he beholds the present capital, may take to himself 
a share of credit for the change. For, as already indicated, 
the protection rendered by the nation to its capital and the 
national spirit revived by the war have caused the wonderful 
transformation. The relation of the soldiers to this devel- 
opment, which gives to the welcome of the city an addi- 
tional degree of grateful warmth, may also inspire the vet- 
erans with a stronger, deeper pride in the beautiful city, 
which in its rudimentary stages they protected and pre- 
served, and which in its present shape they helped directly 
and indirectly to create. 

From its pitiable plight of thirty years ago the capital 
has become an object of interest, pride, and affection to 
Americans of all sections of the republic. In the cosmo- 
politan population of the modern city northerners, southern- 
ers, and westerners are mingled. The latter, not so very long- 
ago in the dependent condition of residents of national 
territory, struggling for greater national attention to their 
affairs, and for more thoughtful consideration of their needs 
and grievances by a legislative body in which they had no 
real representation, and sensitively resenting misconcep- 
tions, born of sectional ignorance, concerning their resources, 
spirit, and tendency, can sympathize with a community 
whose present politically resembles in some respects their 



68 

past, and they should be able to legislate with peculiar 
wisdom and consideration for this bit of national soil, doing 
to the capital as they would that the nation had done unto 
them in the times that are gone. 

But the strongest hold of the capital upon north and 
west — upon patriotic Americans everywhere — arises from 
the fact that it embodies the national idea. Washington 
was brought into being as peculiarly and exclusively the 
home and abiding place of the nation as distinguished from 
the states. Instead of selecting as the capital an existing city 
of some state, the nation determined to create a capital, 
which should be largely owned and exclusively controlled 
by the republic itself. With this purpose in view it acquired 
by gift title to five-sevenths of the soil of the city that it 
created, and reserved to itself by the organic law the consti- 
tutional power of exclusive legislation in this capital. It 
planned a magnificent city upon unimproved lands, and sold 
lots upon the implied agreement that the capital should be 
permanent and that the grand design on paper of the nation's 
city would be made a reality by the nation. The capital 
was the crystallization of the national idea, it was the sub- 
stantial embodiment of the abstract Union, the materializa- 
tion of a power superior to that of the state. It owes no di- 
vided allegiance to a state, arousing jealousies in the other 
states. It is the city of the nation, the whole nation. 

The south is not excluded by any means from bonds of 
sympathy with the capital. The passing of slavery removes the 
point of greatest sensitiveness that was touched by the exist- 
ence of a national city and no abstract view concerning the re- 
lations of state and nation needs to interfere longer with 
pride in and affection for the capital of the south, as well as 
of the north, and east, and west, The city was founded by 
southerners and the dangers that menaced its infancy were 
warded off by them. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Clay, 
Crawford, Calhoun and Jackson are on the first page of the 
list of the capital's friends. The west and north have sup- 
plied their full quota of notable names to this list, especially 



69 

since the war. The great men from all sections who have 
delighted to enroll themselves among those who have 
labored hardest to make the capital worthy of the republic, 
rebuke and put to shame the notion which seems to have 
gained some prevalence in Congress that the brains of legis- 
lators are not broad enough to consider thoughtfully both 
capital and national affairs, and that it is statesman-like 
therefore to disdainfully ignore the capital. There is no act 
of the forefathers which gives more convincing evidence of 
wise forethought than the creation and general design of 
the national city. What they planned the men of to-day 
are to fully carry out. There is in addition the new Wash- 
ington that has sprung up outside of the original bound- 
aries, which needs its George Washington, its Jefferson, its 
L'Enfant. If without loss of dignity and to their lasting 
credit Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson could throw them- 
selves, as they did, enthusiastically into the labor of secur- 
ing for the capital bridges across the Potomac, there is no 
statesman of to-day so great that he will not acquire new 
laurels by the performance of a similar and much-needed 
task for the present city. There can be no more ennobling 
and patriotic labor than that which associates one's name 
with those of the illustrious forefathers in developing and 
adorning the city of the Union, the nation in miniature, 
fostering the national sentiment, realizing the national as- 
piration, gratifying the national pride. 

What is done for the capital is done for the nation and 
for the promotion of national sentiment. All three advance 
together. The national value of the true capital as a unify- 
ing patriotic influence is not to be disregarded or underrated. 
When the southerners seceded they left Washington with 
regret and looked forward to the predicted early date when 
the} r would return to legislate under the southern flag. 
They have returned to the city which southerners founded, 
protected and loved, and they legislate under the southern 
flag — the flag of the Union — south, north, east and west. 
And many of them thank God to-day that it is so. They 



70 

are here not as captives in a strange city, but as prodigals 
returned to a home, the house of their forefathers, rich in 
associations both joyful and pathetic, standing upon land in 
which they have an interest, and governed exclusively by 
the Union, of which they are a part. In Washington every 
American is at home, whether the pine, the cypress or the 
cottonwood grew above him. Here is the altar of American 
patriotism, not to be approached under the scriptural in- 
junction without reconciliation with our brother of the 
south, or north, or east, or west. At Washington all Ameri- 
cans come together on equal terms with a common interest. 
The west learns the east, the north the south and vice versa. 
All sections are bound more closely together. Prejudices 
are softened and gradually removed. National sentiment 
dominates, the American spirit is developed and patriotism 
is strengthened. In the national crucible sectional jealous- 
ies and hatred are removed and the pure gold of American 
patriotism remains. 

George Washington foresaw this unifying, nationalizing 
function of the capital, and for that reason proposed to locate 
in it the national university which he projected. Here, he 
said, the susceptible youth of the land, in the atmosphere of 
the nation's city and viewing the workings of the general 
government, would be impressed with a love of our national 
institutions, counteracting both foreign influences and sec- 
tional sentiments. The university of which he dreamed was 
never born, but, carrying out his idea on a grander scale, 
the capital has itself become a national university, in which 
all Americans are students, for the promotion of liberal, 
enlarged and patriotic Americanism, teaching love of 
country and making of all of us better citizens. 

Superstition and tradition have associated the fate of 
more than one of the great nations of the world with that of 
some material object. 

" While stands the Colosseum Rome shall stand, 
When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall." 

The future of the empire built on physical force is in 



71 

fancy intertwined with the fate of the vast structure in which 
exhibitions of that force in the bloody contests of gladiators 
and the slaughter of martyrs were habitually displayed. It 
may be that our republic has its material symbol. The 
close relation between the nation's city and the patriotic 
national sentiment has been noted. Washington is not 
merely the republic's political heart, from which the influ- 
ences flow that determine the destiny of the nation. It is 
also the soul of the Union as an entity, forbidding the idea 
that the republic has no higher life than that of a mere 
hodge-podge of states. At once the bond and token of union 
the nation's city and the spirit of American nationality are 
entertwined. The former flourishes as the latter is strong. 
It sickened when that influence controlled which negatived 
the national idea and viewed the state as supreme. It again 
revived when civil war developed the patriotic national 
sentiment and Americans learned that the Union is a sub- 
stantial something to love, to live for and to die for. The 
bloodshed of the Revolution gave birth to the spirit of nation- 
ality and created the city ; the bloodshed of the civil war 
revived the spirit and regenerated the city. Sincere and en- 
thusiastic love of country is what keeps alive the modern re- 
public and gives it prosperity and glory. Both capital and 
nation have planted the roots of their existence in this 
patriotic sentiment. The Union and its peculiar residence 
and part property, hallowed by every association which can 
keep patriotism alive, rest upon the same supports. The 
imagination can readily conceive that the spirit of nation- 
ality, the soul of the Union, is enshrined in this exclusive 
territory, and that if ever its peculiar existence shall be ex- 
tinguished the event will be a forerunner of the dissolution 
of the Union. 

All through the doubtful stages of the civil struggle the 
sound of the busy workman's tools was heard in the Capitol 
building, cheering evidence of the national confidence in 
the result of the warfare, and the cannon from miles of forts 
announced the finishing touches to the magnificent dome 



72 

which poises and floats lightly in the air its white lines of 
curving, swelling beauty. As this mighty dome, crowned 
by Liberty, grew into marvelous loveliness amid the turmoil 
and din of war about it, so the patriotic sentiment developed 
in beauty and power from the cannon smoke and bloodshed 
of the civil struggle. While the nation's city and its Capitol 
with freedom-surmounted dome endure the republic will 
stand, for the patriotic sentiment, " the fine, strong spirit of 
nationality " endures also, the foundation of the existence of 
both. 

Our symbol of national unity and perpetuity is not a 
ruin, telling of the decay of the rule of force and of the over- 
throw of the unquestioned supremacy of men of blood and 
iron, but a living, growing, developing city, typifying the 
vitality, continued prosperity and grand destiny of the re- 
public which it shows forth in miniature and which it is 
destined forever to reflect. In exact accordance with the 
progress of the nation, Washington, where beats the pulse of 
the republic's heart blood, will develop. Inevitably, there- 
fore, it will be, not in the corruption of ancient capitals, but 
in republican simplicity of morals, in every phase of intel- 
lectual advancement and in every outward material attrac- 
tion the greatest among the great capitals of the world. 

The soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic are 
passing away. Year by year the number of those able to 
respond in the body at a muster fast decreases. Year by 
year Valhalla claims an increasing host. Soon the last 
veteran will be gathered to his companions in arms. 

But while the republic itself endures the Grand Army 
of the Republic can not die. The distinguishing and abiding 
feature of the Grand Army is not the fact of war, of fratri- 
cidal bloodshed, but the enthusiastic, dominating love of 
country which drove thousands into unaccustomed war as 
by a common, irresistible impulse. This spirit is imperish- 
able and will inspire the youth of a new grand army, proud 
of the deeds of their fathers and forefathers, to whatever 
may be accomplished for their country from love of countr} r . 



73 

If war with a foreign aggressor calls Americans to defence 
of the republic sons and successors will take the places of the 
disappearing veterans and emulate in battle the patriotism, 
courage, and endurance of the soldiers whom we greet 
to-day. If no war threatens — which may God grant ! — the 
grand army of peace will take the field, enlisting the youth 
of America in defence of the republic against the national 
perils of avarice and corruption, and calling upon them for 
the same patriotic bravery and persistence in well-doing 
that is displayed by the soldier against an armed foe. 

The undying patriotic spirit of the Grand Army will 
live in the hearts and minds of all true Americans, harden- 
ing their muscles for war in a righteous cause and devel- 
oping for peaceful times another Grand Army by which 
blows equally effective shall be delivered against evils that 
menace the republic, the creed of whose soldiers shall be 
that it is sweet and pleasant both to live and die for one's 
country. 

To-day the Union's city and the Union's army clasp 
hands in the warm, fraternal greeting of kindred and sym- 
pathetic natures, issuing from a common source, both born 
of patriotic Americanism, both material manifestations of 
the spirit of American nationality. 



REPORT 



Committee on Bridges 



WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 



SUBMITTED AND UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED AT A 
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD, FEB. 23, 1892. 



Printed for the Board of Trade. 



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1892. 





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Report of the Committee on Bridges. 



( )n all sides except the north Washington is surrounded 
by water-ways which separate the city from its District 
suburbs, and from historic Arlington and the suburban set- 
tlements of the Virginia shore of the Potomac. The steady 
and marvelous growth of the city is causing settlement to 
overleap these intervening water-ways, to swell the popula- 
tion of the semi-rural annexes of Washington, and to give 
importance to the problem of supplying adequate bridges to 
bind closely the outlying to the main city. Rock Creek, 
Anacostia river, and the Potomac all demand attention, the 
claims of the last named for consideration being at this time 
most urgent. 

THE LONG DAM MISNAMED LONG BRIDGE. 

Every decayed plank, every foot of obstructive earth or 
stone in the long dam across the Potomac, misnamed Long 
Bridge, is a danger signal to the public, inviting all beholders 
to a crusade of destruction against it in the public interest. 

The specific measure affecting the Long Bridge which has 
come before your Committee to be acted upon is Senate Bill 
No. 1142 and H. R. Bill No. 2770. This measure proposes 
to separate the public highway and the railroad tracks in the 
causeway portion of Long Bridge crossing the reclaimed flats, 
and to give to the railroad for its uses the present highway 
on condition that it construct another, fifty feet westward, at 
a cost not to exceed $25,000. 

The law by which the Government in 1870 gave to the 
Baltimore & Potomac railroad the use of Long Bridge re- 
quires the railroad to maintain the bridge in good condition 



for ordinary travel, and provides for forfeiture of the right 
to use if this requirement is disregarded. 

The bridge is not now in good condition for ordinary 
travel. In the preamble of the bill under consideration, in- 
troduced as the proposition of the railroad, it is recited and 
admitted that through the increase of railway traffic over the 
tracks in close proximity to the highway " said bridge " is 
rendered " unsafe for ordinary travel." Nor can a shaky, 
rickety old structure which is prevented from sweeping down 
the river only by mountains of stone piled about its piers 
at the bottom of the river and obstructing the channel be 
pronounced in good repair for ordinary travel, even if the 
dangers from proximity of tracks be entirely disregarded. 

A separation of the highway from the tracks in crossing 
the reclaimed flats and a radical reconstruction of Long 
Bridge are necessary not only to the public welfare but on 
the railroad's account, to prevent a forfeiture of its right to 
cross the Potomac by bridge at this point. 

OBJECTIONS TO THE EAILEOAD's PENDING PEOPOSITION. 

The broad objections to the railroad's proposition in the 
present bill are : (1) It ignores the most serious evils in 
the condition of Long Bridge and fails to remedy the worst 
features of the particular evil which it undertakes to cure. (2) 
It fails to separate the grades of tracks and highway, leaving 
horses upon the latter to be frightened by trains upon an in- 
creased number of tracks in close proximity, and tends to 
strengthen the hold of the railroad upon the surface of the 
reclaimed flats, the park that is to be. (3) It fixes the cost 
limit upon the proposed improvement at only one-third of 
the amount which Col. Peter C. Hains reported would be 
necessary to construct a suitable new highway of the kind 
proposed. (4) It demands an exorbitant price, in the shape 
of the grant to it of the present highway, for imperfectly meet- 
ing a danger which it admits to be of its own creation, and 



which, it says, renders unsafe for ordinary travel a structure 
which it is under legal obligation to maintain at its own ex- 
pense in good condition for such ordinary travel. 

LONG BKLDGE MUST GO. 

The public verdict is that Long Bridge must go, and the 
community reasonably demands a comprehensive plan of re- 
moving the whole nuisance and obstruction of the present 
structure at a single legislative stroke. 

The railroad's project of acquiring the Long Bridge cause- 
way was presented to the last Congress, was referred to the 
Secretary of War for an opinion, and elicited a valuable re- 
port from Col. Peter C. Hains, then in charge of river front 
improvements, which so fully meets the idea of your Com- 
mittee that it is made a part of this report and attached to it 
as an appendix. 

It may be added that the conclusions of Col. Hains con- 
cerning the Long Bridge problem have also been heartily 
indorsed and recommended to Congress for adoption by the 
Commissioners of the District in a recent report upon the 
present bill forwarded to the Senate District Committee. 

COMPKEHENSIVE PLAN OF COL. HAINS. 

Col. Hains opposed a piecemeal treatment of the problem. 
The causeway portion of the bridge cuts in two the 650 acres 
of new-made ground, which, at the expense of over $1,000,000, 
the Government has created out of pestilential marshes and 
which it proposes to convert into a magnificent park. Col. 
Hains considered it of supreme importance that the railroad 
be removed from the grade of this park, and that the tracks 
be carried over it on an elevated structure which would allow 
free communication beneath them. He proposed that the 
public highway, separated from the tracks, should cross the 
park on grade. The present low-lying structure, about ten 



feet clear of high and thirteen feet clear of low tide, that 
dams the main channel of the river was to be replaced by a 
much higher bridge, with few piers, and so constructed as to 
offer the least obstruction to the rushing waters in times of 
freshet. 

THE NUISANCE AND MENACE OF LONG BRIDGE. 

It is time that the people of the capital insisted in no un- 
certain tones upon the abatement of the nuisance, the removal 
of the menace, of existing Long Bridge, and the substitution 
of a useful and ornamental structure in its place. Life and 
millions of property are periodically threatened by it. Great 
damage has resulted from it in the past. More serious losses 
are threatened in the future. Navigation is obstructed and 
harbor facilities injured by it. Georgetown and the whole 
river front with reason cry out against it. 

With its solid causeway stretching for a long distance 
across the river ; with the great pyramidal piles of stone 
about the piers that carry the bridge across the main channel, 
reducing, it is estimated, the available room for the passage 
of water by at least a third ; with its low structure across the 
channel, which with its numerous piers standing obliquely to 
the flood current and stringers close to the surface stops the 
drift and ice in every freshet and solidifies into a formidable 
obstruction, the Long Bridge is a mighty dam blocking the 
Potomac and at every flood turning the water of the river upon 
the lower sections of Washington, including Pennsylvania 
avenue. 

WHAT THE LATEST FLOOD DID. 

Great losses were incurred by the city from this cause in 
1877. Again in 1881, when the freshet itself was not so high, 
but an ice gorge formed at the bridge, resulting in the destruc- 
tion of three of its spans and the deluging of Washington. 
The even more serious visitation of June, 1889, is still fresh 



in recollection. The waters of the Potomac rose higher than 
ever known before by the oldest inhabitant, fully three feet 
above the 1877 flood-mark, clear to the stringers of the Long 
Bridge, and continued for hours to flow so high that nothing 
of any size floating on the river could pass under tlie bridge. The 
structure served, as usual, to collect the drift and debris from the 
surface of the swollen Potomac. The Analostan boat-house 
was swept from its foundations and carried down the torrent 
with all its contents, going Anally to ruin against the bridge. 
Against it canal boats, barges, and mud -scows were also piled 
by the swift current. A schooner was torn from its anchor- 
age in the Georgetown channel and its wreckage was heaped 
against the causeway and draw. A bridge about sixty feet 
long floated down the river in fairly good condition, until it 
came to grief against Long Bridge. Small articles of accu- 
mulated drift were numerous. The bridge itself, thus rudely 
assaulted and presenting every hour a greater surface of ob- 
struction to the freshet, was in great danger. All night be- 
fore the worst of the flood the bridge watchers paced restlessly 
up and down its north end, expecting every minute to see it 
give way. Directions were given to load the bridge with all 
the cars available and a long train of loaded freight cars 
backed on it. The old causeway was completely submerged 
and the fence which divided the driveway from the railroad 
tracks was swept away. A canal boat struck the draw on 
the Virginia side, completely disabling it. The rushing waters 
obstructed by the impromptu dam were driven in destructive 
cross currents over and against the reclaimed flats, doing 
much damage, and were turned in upon the lower levels of 
the centre of the city. Nearly all the business houses south 
of Pennsylvania avenue to the Mall and north of B street 
from the Capitol to loth "street were flooded. All the cellars 
were rilled and nearly all the stores were partly under water, 
causing heavy losses. The Baltimore & Potomac station 
is described as presenting ;i novel sight. The water completely 
tilled the waiting rooms. Boats floated through the entrances 



8 

of the depot. Persons living on Missouri avenue were un- 
able to leave their homes except by means of boats, as the 
water there was ver} 7 deep. The flood came before 
many of the residents had been provided with eatables for 
the day, and had it not been for outside assistance many of 
them would probably have gone hungry. All the streets 
leading south from the Avenue between the Botanical Gardens 
and the Treasury were canals. The basements and lower 
floors of houses were under water. The Market-house stood 
in the centre of a great lake. Rafts and boats appeared in 
numbers on the street. 



WHAT THE NEXT FLOOD MAY DO. 

Whenever one of the series of great fr eshe ts, which from 
time to time partly destroy the Long Bridge and flood the 
city, shall occur when the river is full of ice from the break- 
ing up in the upper Potomac after heavy winter rains, an ice / n % J~\ 
gorge will be formed at Long Bridge which will send a broad, 
deep stream through Washington by way of Pennsylvania / *? 
avenue, inundating and damaging the city beyond expression ^« 
and beyond conception, and will probably end by sweeping J 
away Long Bridge altogether, destroying the railroad and jS]{aA-tk 
highway communication with Virginia and severing the - 
southern connections supplied by this structure. Unless no ^ 
other less heroic method of causing Long Bridge to go is , 
possible, the city would prefer to remove this public nuisance 
in some way that does not contemplate Washington's tem- 
porary conversion into a water city, half Venice, half Johns- 
town, threaten loss of life, and involve a damage to its busi- 
ness interests measured by millions. 



FLATS IMPROVEMENT INCLUDES LONG BRIDGE RECONSTRUCTION. 

The great project of Potomac harbor improvements con- 
templated that the reclamation of the flats should be accom- 



panied at an early stage by a reconstruction of Long Bridge 
substantially in the manner now proposed, and the further 
protection of the new-made park, when completed, by a sea- 
wall. This noble work should be pushed to completion. 
The Government's expenditure of $1,000,000 on the im- 
provement ought to be rendered effective by the compara- 
tively small additional outlay required. Both the city of 
Washington and the harbor improvement, flood threatened, 
implore Congress for speedy action in the matter. 

SEWERS WILL NEED ATTENTION. 

When a sea-wall and a new Long Bridge remove the dan- 
ger of a surface invasion of Potomac water, the entrance of the 
swollen river through the sewers, especially the sewer which 
replaces the old canal, must also be prevented. The low- 
lying section of the city must be raised or radical changes 
in the sewerage system devised and effected, or the sewers 
must be provided with the necessary valves and pumps or 
other appliances to prevent the distribution by back water of 
their tilth upon the surface, rotting under the nostrils of the 
people and menacing public health. 

COMMITTEE URGES COMPREHENSIVE, NOT PIECEMEAL, ACTION. 

Reporting specifically upon the bill before it, your Com- 
mittee disapproves it on the ground that it asks too much 
for the railroad and offers too little to the public in the 
particulars already specified ; that it threatens railroad occu- 
pation of the surface of the new park, furnishing additional 
evidence of the mysterious affinity existing between railroad 
tracks and public parks in the city of Washington ; that it is 
hostile to Col. Hains' admirable and comprehensive plan of 
solving the Long Bridge problem, and that it tends to post- 
pone indefinitely the much-needed reconstruction of the 
Long Bridge. We therefore recommend the substitution for 



10 

this measure of a bill for rebuilding Long Bridge on the 
general lines laid down by Col. Hains, replacing it with a 
structure which shall neither threaten the city nor obstruct 
navigation to the harbor of Georgetown, and urge with all 
the emphasis possible the importance and necessity of 
immediate and energetic action by Congress in the direction 
indicated. 

THE RAILROAD READY TO IMPROVE ITS TERMINALS. 

It is stated on apparently good authority that the Baltimore 
& Potomac Railroad, in view of the opposition to its project 
concerning the Long Bridge which developed in the Senate 
District Committee, in the Commissioners of the District, and 
in the public press, has expressed a willingness to reconstruct 
the bridge substantially in the manner desired as part of a 
general improvement of its Washington terminal facilities, 
and that Senator McMillan, Chairman of the Senate District 
Committee, on the basis of the road's agreement with him, is 
framing a measure which will rebuild Long Bridge, remove 
grade-crossings in the city, and elevate or depress the tracks 
in crossing the Mall. 

THE RAILROAD'S BILL AGAINST THE PUBLIC. 

If this legislation is through Senator McMillan's skilful 
negotiations and management and the progressiveness of the 
railroad accomplished, the railroad will have, it is intimated, 
a bill against the United States and possibly the District on 
account of the construction of the public highway part of the 
new Long Bridge. But there are offsets to the railroad's 
bill against the public. This fact is fortunate for the fate of 
the proposed measure, for Ihere could be no more serious im- 
pediment to the success of a bill at this session of the present 
Congress than the fact that it involved a large appropriation 



11 

from the District revenues, upon which the demands already 
so largely exceed the supply. 

THE PUBLIC'S BILL AGAINST THE RAILROAD. 

In balancing the accounts between the public and the rail- 
road it is to be remembered that the latter secures from the 
former in connection with this legislation : (1) Release of claim 
for rental for the admittedly illegal use and occupation of 
streets and certain reservations for, lo! these many years. An 
act of the last Congress legalized the occupation and use of 
six small reservations which had for years been used without 
legal authority. The road has occupied and still occupies 
the large reservation at the intersection of Maryland and 
Virginia avenues, which Mr. A. G. Riddle, when attorney for 
for the District, reported to be held only by virtue of " squat- 
ter sovereignty." It has paid nothing for its long illegal use 
of the streets and reservations as storage depots and shifting 
yards. (2) Legalizing the alleged illegal tracks along Mary- 
land avenue between 9th and 6th streets if a route along this 
avenue is agreed upon. (3) An increase of the number of 
its legal tracks and the space occupied by them on public 
property between Virginia avenue and the 6th-street station ; 
also along the whole route on both Maryland and Virginia 
avenues and across the reclaimed flats. This means the do- 
nation of a valuable strip of public property, a large addition 
to the railroad's land grant, representing a heavy expenditure 
if payment were exacted at the market price. (4) Most im- 
portant of all, the removal of the grounds of public hostility 
founded on the present condition of Long Bridge, and the no- 
thoroughfare belt of surface tracks along Maryland and Vir- 
ginia avenues and 6th street, and the conciliation of the pub- 
lic by the erection here, as virtually promised, of the finest 
station to be found on the Pennsylvania's whole system, will 
in effect cause the temporary grant of right of way from Vir- 
ginia avenue to the free station site on the Mall to become 



12 

permanent. It will then be impossible to loosen the rail- 
road's grip upon the park. The value of this benefit to the 
railroad is almost incalculable. Some time ago Senator 
Ingalls estimated the value of the Mall privileges, for which 
the railroad would have to pay elsewhere, as at least half a mil- 
lion dollars. They are worth more now. This estimate in- 
dicates only the pecuniary value of the acquisition, and allows 
nothing for the injury and practical destruction of the continu- 
ous park from the Capitol to the White House which our fore- 
fathers planned and which is necessary as an in-the-city breath- 
ingplace for those who have neither the means nor thetime for 
a suburban outing. If the city's magnificent original plan is 
to be permanently altered and disfigured for the railroad's 
benefit let the latter pay handsomely for this desecration, as 
well as for its land grants. If the esthetic, sentimental, and 
sanitary considerations which plead for the uninterrupted 
Mall of L'Enfant's plan are to be buried beyond hope of res- 
urrection, and the issue is reduced to the business-like 
question of dollars and cents, let the dollars and cents of 
compensation also be exacted on strictly business principles. 
If a part of the city's birthright is to be disposed of for a mess 
of pottage, let those who are responsible for the transfer at 
least see to it that the municipal stomach enjoys every par- 
ticle of pottage justly due. The railroad's direct gain, when 
the temporary loan of its Mall privileges becomes a permanent 
gift, will be so vi st that, without the aid of the other items 
enumerated, it will be sufficient to outweigh any claim against 
the District, however exaggerated, on account of the abolition 
of grade-crossings and the reconstruction of Long Bridge. 

LONG BRIDGE PROBLEM VIEWED SEPARATELY. 

If, however, the Long Bridge is treated separately from 
the local railroad question, the Government, which met the 
full cost of the structure of which it granted the use in 1870 
to the railroad, can well afford, in protection of and as part of 



13 

the harbor improvement, to meet a part of the expense of 
reconstructing the bridge. Neighboring Virginia will be even 
more directly interested in the new structure as a bridge than 
Washington, which is more especially concerned about the 
removal of the dam, the prompt abatement of the dangerous 
nuisance of the present, than the acquirement of additional 
bridge facilities at this point. The gain of the capital city 
will, however, be great on one score and considerable on the 
other, and this fact will be readily admitted by it whatever 
turn the discussion concerning the provision of ways and 
means for the project may take. 

ELEVATE EATHER THAN DEPRESS THE TRACKS. 

Your Committee ventures to express the hope that the 
problem of bridges across railroad tracks will not arise in 
connection with the Baltimore & Potomac tracks leading 
to the Long Bridge. Last year the railroad opposed the 
depression and bridging of these tracks on the ground that 
this procedure would not bring the tracks to Long Bridge in 
proper relation to an elevated structure. If the railroad, 
adhering to its belief of last year, should favor the abolition 
of its grade-crossings by the building of an arched masonry 
viaduct of the Berlin type there would be no disturbance of 
the grade of streets or street-car lines, no damage to property 
owners from long, ugly approaches to high bridges at certain 
streets, and there would be convenient passage-way for the 
public under the elevated structure at numerous points. 

MODERN BRIDGE BUILDING. 

In the construction of the new Long Bridge, of the much- 
desired and much needed bridge to Arlington, of the required 
additional structures and reconstructed existing bridges 
across the Anacostia river and Rock Creek, and of any bridges 
across steam railroad tracks to avoid grade-crossings which 



14 

may be necessarj', your Committee recommends the building 
of broad, substantial structures, as far as possible continual 
tions of the streets in grade, in width, and in surface. The 
bridge sign, " Walk your horses," is as unmistakable an 
indication of delayed municipal development and old fogy 
conditions as the appearance of a bridge toll-collector. 

The modern bridge ought also to be so constructed as to 
afford rapid transit facilities without interfering with the 
comfort and safety of pedestrians and persons in private 
vehicles. Rapid transit connections perform a similar 
function to the bridges which they utilize in binding subur- 
ban settlements to the city and in enabling the latter to 
absorb and assimilate them. 

When the District's needs in respect to bridges and rapid 
transit are fully met, Washington will not only extend a sym- 
metrical plan of streets to the boundaries of the Maryland 
portion of the ten miles square, but will practically annex the 
Virginia retroceded fraction. Whether or not judicial annul- 
ment of the retrocession or a second cession shall legally 
restore to the District its original dimensions, Washington 
will, in fact, extend its boundaries across the Potomac and 
add Arlington to its system of parks. 

In the future Washington, which the proposed legislation 
promises to aid in developing, the Potomac river will be util- 
ized to its full capacity for the benefit of the trade, health, and 
pleasure of the city. The present impediment to easy access 
to the river front, the impassable barrier of a belt of surface 
railroad tracks, illegally occupied by standing cars, will be 
sent to join the obstacles of the past — a pestiferous canal, a 
criminal-infested Mall, and high bluffs which needed to be 
pierced. A local rapid-transit system will bring the Poto- 
mac within easy reach. The fine harbors from Georgetown 
to the Anacostia to be obtained when the flats are filled will 
meet the demands of the city's growing commerce. Without 
its malarious marshes the quickened river will cut large slices 
from the District's death-rate. Handsome and substantial 



15 

bridges, perhaps a memorial bridge to Arlington, with a broad 
avenue leading to Mount Vernon, will furnish communication 
with Virginia, and the Long Bridge, that shabby, flood-threat- 
ening nuisance of the present, will be only a disagreeable 
reminiscence. 

THEODORE W. NOYES, 

Chairman. 

JOHN B. WIGHT. 
FRANCIS R. FAVA, Jr. 
FRANK HUME. 
C. B. CHURCH. 
JOHN G. SLATER. 



APPENDIX. 



REPORT ON SEPARATING WAGON ROAD FROM RAILROAD ON 
THE NORTH SIDE OF MAIN CHANNEL OF POTOMAC RIVER. 

United States Engineer Office, 

Washington. D. C, April 2, 1890. 
General : By indorsement of March 10, 1890, office Chief of Engineers, 
the following resolution of the Senate of the United States was referred to 
me for report : 

In the Senate of the United States, 
March 7, 1890. 
Resolved, That the Secretary of War be requested to investigate, in con- 
nection with the Potomac flats improvement, the desirability of separating 
the wagon road from the railroad on the north side of the main channel of 
the Potomac, and to furnish an estimate of the cost of the same. 

Attest : ANSON G. McCOOK, 

Secretary. 

In obedience to your orders I have to report as follows : The main channel 
of the Potomac is that one between the outer margin of the Potomac flats 
improvement and the Virginia shore, and is commonly know as the Virginia 
channel. From the north side of said channel, as well as across it, to the 
south end of Maryland avenue, the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad tracks 
and the public wagon road are on the same bridge and necessarily close to- 
gether. It is presumably to the separation of these on the north side of the 
channel that the resolution of the Senate of the United States refers. 

Long Bridge was first built in 1809 by the Washington Bridge Company, 
and the act of Congress, February 5, 1808, which authorized its construction, 
authorized the collection of tolls. At that time there was no causeway be- 
tween the Washington channel and the main or Virginia channel, as there is 
now. In 1831 the bridge was destroyed by a freshet. In 1834 an appropri- 
ation was made to rebuild it. and it was rebuilt. In 1810 it was again parti- 
ally destroyed by a freshet and the sudden breaking up of ice. In 1843 it 
was repaired and again opened for travel. In 1870 the Baltimore & Poto- 
mac Railroad Company was authorized to take possession of. and extend its 
tracks across, the bridge (see act approved June 21, 1870), under the follow- 
ing conditions, to wit : 

P?-ovided, That the said Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Company will 
maintain in good condition the said bridge for railway and ordinary travel ; 
and the bridge shall at all times be and remain a free bridge for public use 
for ordinary travel. 

******* 

That if the said Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Company shall at any 
time neglect to keep said bridge in good repair and free for public use for 



17 

ordinary travel the Government of the United States may enter into pos- 
session of the said bridge: and Congress reserves the right to alter or 
amend this law. 

The bridge remains to-day the property of the Baltimore & Potomac 
Eailroad Company by virtue of that act of Congress. By the term bridge 
is meant the entire structure from the Washington shore to the Virginia 
shore, including the causeway across the flats. The total length of the 
bridge, inclusive of the causeway, is 4,677 feet. The railroad is a single- 
track road. The wagon road is close alongside of it the entire distance. 

'['Ik' bridge was badly damaged by the freshet of last June, and it has 
been necessary to support that part between the Fourteenth street abut- 
ment and the north end of the causeway by trestles. 

At one place on the bridge there is barely width enough for a single 
wagon and a single train of cars to pass. In its present condition it is far 
from being a convenient structure, and the separation of the wagon road 
from the railroad, so that one would be entirely independent of the other, 
would be an improvement over the existing arrangement. Indeed, a wagon 
road and a railroad on one and the same bridge is always objectionable and 
is only tolerated from necessity. The portion of the bridge that spans the 
Washington channel is now in such a condition that the question of rebuild- 
ing it entirely, rather than repairing it, is one for serious consideration, 
from motives of economy. 

It may be assumed that there will always exist a necessity for a bridge at 
or in close proximity to the existing bridge; that it will be needed for rail- 
road and ordinary traffic : that the traffic of both kinds over it will increase 
from year to year. 

Under the circumstances, and in view of its present condition and of the 
improvements now being made by the Government on the river front, it 
would seem that it is desirable to separate the wagon road from the railroad, 
provided their separation be made in accordance with some comprehensive 
plan of improvement that is ultimately aimed at for this particular locality, 
and in which the railroad company and the Government are both so vitally 
interested. 

The first thing then to determine is, what should be the project aimed at? 
The Government has already expended over a million of dollars in improving 
the river front by filling up the marshes or flats and digging out channels 
for the accommodation of commerce. It has created an area of 650 acres of 
land above overflow by ordinary tides where formerly there existed acres of 
pestilential marshes. The land thus made, though not yet raised to the full 
height intended, already assumes a value estimated as in excess of its 
cost, and is susceptible of being made into one of the finest parks in the Dis- 
trict. This land is cut in two by the causeway portion of the bridge, and, 
should the Government decide to utilize it as park, it is of supreme impor- 
tance that the railroad tracks l>e carried over it on a grade that will allow free 
communication beneath them. To keep the ra lroad on the grade of the 
park would he decidedlj objectionable. 



IS 

Again, that part of Long Bridge that spans the main channel of the river 
is as now built a serious obstruction to the free flow of the river in time of 
freshets. The Board of Engineers that recommended the plan of improving 
the river front, now being carried out, called attention to the necessity of 
rebuilding that structure with wider spans at an early stage of the work. 
The freshet of June last emphasized it. Reports have frequently been made 
to Congress calling attention to the matter. Had the freshet of last 
June occurred when the river was full of ice a gorge would most probably 
have formed at the bridge and destroyed it. At the same time a much larger 
area of the city would have been inundated. 

There is no possible way of preventing freshets. Moreover, they are 
most apt to occur when the ice in the upper Potomac breaks up after heavy 
rains. 

Long Bridge has been at least partially destroyed several times already. 
When there is a freshet in the river ample room should be given to allow 
the water to flow off freely. If it be partially dammed up, as it now is. by 
the Long Bridge as constructed, the level will be raised and the chances of 
the water being. thrown in on the city increased. 

The reconstruction of Long Bridge over the main channel of the river forms 
an essential part of any project that looks to the permanent improvement 
of the river front, and is intimately connected with the question of sep- 
arating the wagon road from the railroad on the north side of that channel. 

In reply, therefore, to the inquiry of the Senate of the United States I 
would say that the separation of the wagon road from the railroad on the 
north side of the main chanael of the Potomac would be desirable as a part 
of a project that looks to the raising of the grade of the railroad tracks across 
the flats high enough to give passage way for vehicles under them, and to 
the reconstruction of the bridge over the main channel of the river on wider 
spans, that will cause less obstruction to the flow of the water. 

The project, stated in few words, would be somewhat as follows : 

At or near the intersection of Maryland avenue and Thirteen-and-a-half 
street, where the grade of the street is 24 feet above mean low tide in the 
Potomac, carry the railroad tracks with a rising grade southward, over a 
viaduct of brick masonry, with arched openings, or on iron trestles (so as to 
allow communication under the tracks), to a point marked A on the accom- 
panying tracing. From this point to B, a distance of about 180 feet, the head 
of the Washington channel to be spanned by two arched trusses or plate 
girders, which should rest on new abutments and one new pier, that would 
not materially obstruct the flow of water from the tidal reservoir into the 
Washington channel. Prom B the railroad to be carried on a brick arched 
viaduct, or on iron trestles, at such grade (about 28 feet above the plane of 
mean low tide) as would allow free communication under it to C. From C 
the grade of the rail oad to be 1 foot in 100 feet till it reaches, at D, the 
north abutment of a new bridge across the main channel of the river, or 
better still, the grade could be carried at 28 feet to said abutment. The 
wagon road, starting from the foot of Fourteenth street, to cross the upper 



19 

end of the Washington channel on a separate and distinct bridge from that 
which will carry the railroad, run nearly parallel to the latter, but some dis- 
tance from it, till ii reaches the new bridge across the main channel. This 
new bridge should be constructed on the west side of the existing bridge, ar- 
ranged for a double track railway, and wagon road, to have eight spans of 
about 270 feet each, with a pivot-draw in the deep water of the channel. The 
depth of water between the piers to be deepened to about 10 feet on the 
shoal part of the river, to give ample sectional area for freshet discharge. 
As soon as the new bridge is constructed, the old one, with its piers and 
about 400 feet of the causeway at the south end, to be removed. 

Such a project, if carried out, would enable uninterrupted communication 
to be maintained over the lauds of the Government, wdiatever they be used 
for, and would euable a railroad and wagon crossing of the Potomac to be 
maintained at this locality with the least practicable obstruction to the flow 
of the water of the river. 

The cost of the entire project is roughly estimated at about $1,250,000. 

If, therefore, the wagon road be separated from the railroad on the north 
side of the main channel as a part of and in conformity to such a general 
project, or one of a similar nature, there can be no question but that it is 
desirable. 

To build a new wagon road from the foot of Fourteenth street across the 
Government lands to the north end of the now existing bridge, across the 
main channel of the river, inclusive of a new bridge across the head of the 
Washington channel, would cost about .$75,000. 

I transmit herewith a blue-print of the map that accompanied my annual 
report for the year ending June 30, 1889, showing the progress of the work 
on the flats ; also two tracings, viz : "A plan of Long Bridge showing how 
the wagon road and railroad can be separated on the north side of main 
channel of Potomac river," and " Profile of new bridge across the Potomac 
river, proposed as a substitute for the existing Long Bridge." 
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

PETER C. HAINS. 
Lieutenant-Colonel, Corps of Engineers. 

Brigadier-General Thomas L. Casey, 

Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army. 



REPORT 



11 ON PUBLIC LIBRARY 



WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE. 



SUBMITTED AND UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED AT A 
' MEETING OF THE BOARD, MARCH 27, 1894. 



Printed for the Board of Trade. 



WASHINGTON. D. C. 
Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 
1894. 



<^W 



Report of the Committee on Public Library. 



" Why is there not a majesty's library in every county town '. 
There is a majesty's jail and gallows in every one." The reproach 
of Carlyle's question of more than half a century ago has been 
in large measure removed in England through the series of pub- 
lic libraries acts ; and in New England also, and in many States 
of other sections of the Republic, majesty's libraries — libraries 
of the American majesty, the people — are far more numerous 
and conspicuous than the jails. The school and the library, twin 
agencies of education, lessen the need for the prison, and push 
it into the background. 

THE FREE LIBRARY AN EDUCATING AND CIVILIZING AGENT. 

To-day there is general recognition of the important educa- 
tional position of the free circulating library and reading-room, 
accessible at hours when their treasures can be utilized by 
students, both from schools and colleges, and from among the 
working people, whose daylight hours are largely occupied in 
bread-winning. Especially are such libraries appreciated in this 
land of free schools. In State after State, responding to the 
popular demand for these educating and civilizing agencies, has 
legislation been enacted to supply each little municipal subdi- 
vision at the taxpayer's expense. So notable has been this move- 
ment that it has been reasonably predicted that the last quarter 
of the nineteenth century will go down in history as the age of 
electricity and free libraries. The progressive community needs 
the public library as it does the telegraph and telephone. It is 
on the same footing with the common school ; it is the free uni- 
versity of the people. In the public school a liking for books, a 
desire and thirst for knowledge, may naturally be acquired. The 
library develops this liking and meets and gratifies this desire. 
The school imparts the ability to educate one's self by the intel- 
ligent use of books. The library supplements this instruction 



by providing the means and opportunity for such self education. 
As Commissioner W. T. Harris, of the Bureau of Education, has 
aptly stated : " The school teaches how to read — how to use the 
printed page to get out of it all that it contains. The library 
furnishes what to read ; it opens the storehouse of all human 
learning. These two are complementary functions in the great 
work of education. 1 ' 

The library is, then, a true university, both for the graduates 
of the public schools and for the whole people, without regard 
to class, or sex, or age, or wealth, or previous condition of servi- 
tude to ignorance. The people eagerly avail themselves of the 
educational opportunities offered by the public library. It raises 
the whole community to a higher intellectual plane. It is also 
not without its beneficent influence as a moral agent. In some 
of the small New England towns the record shows that as many 
as one out of every five inhabitants, counting men, women, and 
children, is registered as a borrower of library books. More 
persons have there registered to read than have registered to 
vote. The statistics also show that, at first, fiction was most 
largely drawn upon by such readers, but that, as the taste for 
reading was developed, stronger food for the mind was demanded, 
and the ratio of serious reading steadily increased. The read- 
ing-room has proved and will prove a strong rival to all demor- 
alizing resorts in claims upon the evenings of many, especially 
the young, and has served and will serve more and more as a 
satisfactory substitute for nightly idleness in dreary lodgings or 
on the streets. 

WASHINGTON HAS NO FEEE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

What Carlyle sought for each English county town, and what 
many English and American villages now enjoy, the National 
Capital lacks and seeks to obtain. It is fast becoming the Re- 
public's educational centre. Universities are founded in rapid 
succession within its limits. But the great free library univer- 
sity, for those whom Lincoln lovingly called the common people, 
is yet to be created. According to the statistics there are much 
more than a million books in the semi-public libraries of Wash- 
ington — about a twentieth of all in the Republic ; and when these 



have been apportioned among the citizens after the methods of 
statisticians it appears that the District working-man has four- 
teen times as many public books as the average American. And 
the only difficulty is that he cannot possibly make any use of 
them whatsoever. 

The resident in the more elevated sections of Washington 
who could get no water on the upper floors of his house, and 
very little on any floor, saw countless gallons wasted in the De- 
partments, in fountains and otherwise, and learned from statistics 
that he and the other citizens were, in per capita average of gal- 
lons daily used, among the largest consumers of water in the 
country. The population of the Capital, credited with fourteen 
times their due proportion of books, and without a single 
available lending library, with reading-rooms open at night, 
without even the command of books enjoyed by the working- 
people of little Northern and Western towns, detect a similar 
mockery in the library statistics. No satisfactory substitute 
either for actual water or actual books is furnished by compli- 
mentary statistics. 

WANT AMIDST PLENTY. 

The departmental libraries at the Capital contain nearly three 
hundred thousand volumes, accessible only to a few employees 
of the Government, and closed to them early in the afternoon. 
The vast wealth of reading matter in the Congressional Library 
is practically out of reach of the workingmen and school children 
owing to the hours of opening and closing and the conditions 
placed upon the enjoyment of its privileges. Not one of the 
great Government collections is open in the evening, when alone 
the great mass of the people can use the books. There are 
fifty- two libraries in the District, each containing over one 
thousand volumes, and not one of them is a free lending library. 
with a reading-room open at night for the benefit of the general 
public. Such an institution is the most urgent need of the 
National Capital. Viewing this ocean of more than a million 
books, spread tantalizingly before them, the workingmen, the 
school children, the Government clerks, the great mass of the 
citizens of Washington, thirsty for the knowledge which comes 



from reading, may well exclaim with the Ancient Mariner: 
" Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink! " 

A great national reference library for the world's scholars does 
not prevent in other capitals the existence of numerous popular 
libraries, and should not in Washington. " In London, where 
the British Museum, with its vast library of over two million 
volumes, is still sacred to scholars, there are thirty local libraries, 
in addition to many special libraries, open to various classes of 
students. In Paris, where the great national library is only 
open to readers well armed with credentials, there are sixty-four 
popular libraries, while Berlin has twenty-five." 

THIRTY-THREE THOUSAND CHILDREN DEMAND A FREE LIBRARY. 

To meet the absolute necessity of books as working adjuncts 
in the public schools, small libraries have been formed in connec- 
tion with some of the buildings, and the High School has a very 
creditable collection. But to complete and perfect its educa- 
tional system, already so admirable, by adding the people's free 
university to the free school, Washington absolutely needs the 
proposed public library, as an aid to the development of intelli- 
gent men and women, the good Americans of the future, the pil- 
lars of the RejHiblic. Its creation is demanded in the name of 
the 63,000 children of school age in the District, and especially 
in the name of the 33,000 of this number who are over twelve 
years of age. 

TWENTY THOUSAND GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES DEMAND A FREE LIBRARY. 

Investigation of the departmental libraries shows that a very 
large percentage of their three hundred thousand volumes is 
composed of technical books and books of reference, which have 
a direct bearing on the work of the Department which possesses 
them ; that there are only between twenty thousand and thirty 
thousand volumes suitable for a general circulating library, and 
these are confined mainly to three Departments. The Interior De- 
partment, with 10,000 volumes, and the War and Treasury Depart- 
ments, Avith 5,000 volumes each, possess nearly all these books. 
The clerks in the Departments which have no libraries need and 
demand them, and the favored Departments need a wider range 



of reading material than the small collection at the disposal of 
each provides. There are, in round numbers, about twenty 
thousand persons residing iu Washington who draw salaries 
from the Government. Many of these represent families, and 
the number of readers in this Government constituency can 
therefore be estimated only by the customary multiplication of 
the number of Government employees. In the name, also, of 
this numerous and book-loving element of the population the 
creation of the proposed local library is demanded. 

TWENTY-THREE THOUSAND WORKINGMEN DEMAND A FREE LIBRARY. 

Last, but not least, comes a powerful appeal from the District 
workingman. Sometimes, in view of the notable absence from 
the Capital of dirty, noisy factories, which would tend to reduce 
the city's attractiveness as a place of residence, the question is 
raised, "Is there any such individual as the District working- 
man ? " The census of 1890 discloses the fact that, while it is 
the policy of the Capital to encourage only light and clean manu- 
facturing, like that of Paris, over twenty-three thousand adults 
were engaged in the District in lines of work which are classed 
as manufactures, omitting from consideration entirely all the 
other numerous forms of labor. Nineteen thousand of these are 
engaged in purely local industries. Over four thousand are dis- 
covered to be in Government employ, mainly in the Government 
Printing Office and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It 
appears from this report that there were in 1890 in the District 
twenty-three hundred manufacturing establishments with a capi- 
tal of $28,876,258, paying in wages $14,638,790, using materials 
costing $17,187,752, and with products of the value of $39,296,- 
25'.). 

To the census figures must be added the thousauds of work- 
ingmen engaged in other lines of work not classed as manufac- 
tures, and then this number must be multiplied, since many are 
the heads of families, io ascertain the number of readers, and, in 
behalf of this great multitude of people, a free lending library 
and night reading-room are now demanded. ♦ 

ALL WASHINGTON APPEALS FOR A FREE LIBRARY. 

While attention has been called to certain elements of the 
population as standing in special need of library facilities, it is to 



8 

be remembered that only a small fraction of all the people in 
Washington have the leisure to utilize and enjoy a public library 
during daylight hours, so that practically a whole city of 250,000 
inhabitants makes this appeal. 

HOW THE BOOKS MAY BE OBTAINED. 

The first need of the free library — books — can easily be sup- 
plied. The librarian of Congress states that there are many 
thousands of duplicates in the Congressional Library suitable 
for the purposes of this circulating library, which can be spared 
for such use if Congress will consent, and he has formally ap- 
proved the granting of such consent by Congress. 

The existing departmental circulating libraries might be added 
to these books from the Library of Congress and made iuto a 
general departmental library, to which the people of the District 
not employed by the Government might also have access. The 
circulating books, numbering between twenty thousand and 
thirty thousand, accessible in the main only to the clerks in three 
of the Departments, and accessible to them only so far as the 
fraction contained in their own library is concerned, would, if 
collected in a general departmental libiary, be opened to all the 
clerks in all the Departments. A great body of Government 
employees would enjoy privileges of which they are now entirely 
deprived. Those now having a dej^artmental circulating library 
at hand, instead of being limited to its five thousand or ten 
thousand volumes, would have access to more than twenty thou- 
sand in the general library, augmented by large additions from 
the Congressional Library and by private contributions, which, 
if the library were once started, would undoubtedly be consider- 
able. The clerks in the particular buildings in which the circu- 
lating departmental libraries are now accommodated might suffer 
a trifling inconvenience from the removal of the books for a short 
distance, but catalogues of the library should be in all the De- 
partments, and delivery branches established in different parts of 
the city. This inconvenience would thus be reduced to a mini- 
mum, and as an offset to it would be the finer library to which 
these clerks would have access and the public benefit of a great 
expansion of the number of readers to whom the accumulated 
books would be available. Other Departments and bureaus than 



those which now have circulating libraries have applied in some 
instances and intend to apply in others for like privileges. The 
establishment of a general departmental library, open also to the 
public, would save the Government the expensive duplication of 
books in numerous small collections, and would also economize 
in the room space devoted to departmental library purposes. 
Apparently the Government and the clerks would profit by the 
project, as well as the population in general of the city. 

When the nucleus of a library properly housed is once obtained, 
the collection will certainly grow rapidly through private dona- 
tions of books and money, and Avhen it has demonstrated its use- 
fulness and the fact that it is appreciated by the public some one 
of "Washington's wealthy men may be moved by local pride or 
other good motive to endow it and attach to it his name. No 
citizen could erect to himself a nobler memorial. 

WHERE SHALL THE LIBRARY BE HOUSED? 

It is evident that the books can readily be obtained ; the diffi- 
culty is in securing a habitation for the library. A location in 
the new City Post-Office has been warmly urged. In Senate 
debate it has been stated that all the space in this building will 
be needed by the General Government : but, notwithstanding 
this announcement, the amount of available space in this vast 
structure will be so great, its location is so central, and there is 
such fitness in housing the library in a Government building 
which is primarily devoted, in name at least, to local uses, that 
your committee recommend that the first effort on the city's part 
be to obtain this location for its library. 

If the library can be enabled with certainty to preserve its dis- 
tinct existence while housed under the same roof with the great 
national library, contingencies might arise which would render a 
location in some unused portion of the new building for the 
Library of Congress extremely desirable. There will be abund- 
ant room in that structure for at least a quarter of a century. 
An extensive reading-room and every library facility will be avail- 
able. The disadvantages of a location not sufficiently central 
nmy be overcome by the establishment of branches in different 
parts of the city, like those of the Boston public library. 



10 

Then the advantages of space in the proposed new municipal 
building, or in a structure to be donated by some public-spirited 
benefactor yet unknown, have been considered. Your committee 
have thought the wisest course to be to make every effort at first 
to obtain a location in a building already authorized or in course 
of erection, whose construction is assured. A municipal build- 
ing, worthy of the city, when it is legislated into existence and 
actually erected, would be naturally the permanent home of a 
city library ; but we must not wait for this event to occur, or for 
the wealthy benefactor aforesaid to appear or be discovered. 
Delays in securing the suggested nucleus of books are danger- 
ous, and every month of the people's deprivation of needed 
library facilities is injurious. The free library of Washington 
should speedily come into being. It is, therefore, considered 
wise neither to commit the Board to an unchangeable opinion 
concerning the library site nor to suggest postponement of action 
by seeking quarters at this time in some prospective buildiug, 
whose existence is as yet only in our hopes. 

LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED. 

Your committee ask authority to urge upon Congress legisla- 
tion which shall create a library of the kind described as neces- 
sary in this report, with the suggested nucleus of books, and in 
that location which shall appear, after conference with the ap- 
propriate committees of Congress, to be most available. Your 
committee submit the draft of a bill as a suggestion of the gen- 
eral lines of the proposed legislation. 

If only a small fraction of the books in Washington can be 
made accessible to the mass of its people, the city will be well 
supplied. It will no longer starve in an overflowing granary. 
The project of a public and departmental circulating library and 
reading-room, open in the evening, is worthy of the strongest 
and most enthusiastic labors in its behalf. It will doubtless re- 
ceive the hearty support of the Board of Trade, of every public- 
spirited citizen, and of all friends of the Capital and its people, 
who appreciate the fact that a city of a quarter million of inhab- 



11 

itants contains men to be considered, and not merely streets, 
buildings, trees, statues, and monuments. 

THEODORE W. NO YES, 

Chairman. 

james t. Dubois, 
daniel murray, 
john g. ames, 
frederick b. mcguire. 
george e. emmons, 
simon wolf. 



A BILL to establish a free public and departmental library and 
reading-room in the District of Columbia. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
the United /States of America in Congress assembled, That there 
be, and is hereby, established in the city of Washington a free 
public and departmental library and readiug-room, being also a 
circulating or lending library, for the use of the citizens of the 
District of Columbia and of the employees of the several depart- 
ments and offices of the Government in Washington. The gen- 
eral management of the library shall be committed to a board of 
trustees consisting of eleven citizens of the District of Columbia, 
to be appointed by the President of the United States. 

Sec. 2. That said library shall be located in the new Post-Office 
building of Washington, D. O, and the architect of the same is 
hereby directed to provide in his plans and specifications rooms 
in said building suitable for and adapted to library and reading- 
room purposes, adequate to the accommodation of not less than 
seventy-five thousand volumes. 

Sec. 3. That whenever provisions for the library are completed 
such books, periodicals, and papers in the existing libraries of 
the several executive departments and offices of the Government 
in the city of Washington as in the judgment of the head of the 
department, bureau, or office affected are not required for the 
special official use of said department, bureau, or office shall be 
transferred to the free public and departmental library and read- 
ing room, for its use, and it is hereby made the duty of the 
bead of each department, bureau, or office in which a circulating 
library is maintained for the use of employees of the Government 
to deliver all such books, periodicals, and papers, without delay, 
to the free public and departmental library and reading-room, 
and thereafter no general circulating library but only such library 
as is required for its special official use shall be established or 



12 



£ 



maintained by any department, bureau, or office of the Gove rn 
ment in the District of Columbia. 

Sec. 4. That the Librarian of Congress is hereby authorized 
and directed to turn over to the free public and departmental 
library and reading-room such duplicate copies of books in his 
charge as are not required for the use of the Library of Con- 
gress. 

Sec 5. That upon the completion of rooms for the library 
herein provided for, the said board of trustees shall appoint one 
librarian and such assistant librarians and other employees as the 
said board may deem necessary. 

Sec 6. That all citizens of the District of Columbia, and all 
officers, clerks, and other employees of the Government on duty 
in the city of Washington shall be entitled to the privileges of 
the free public and departmental library and reading-room, free 
of all charge, including- the use of the books contained therein 
as a lending or circulating library, under such rules and regula- 
tions as shall be prescribed by the board of trustees : provided, 
That the library and reading-room shall be kept open from nine 
o'clock ante meridian to ten o'clock post meridian each day, ex- 
cepting Sundays and holidays, on which days said library and 
reading-room shall be kept open from three o'clock post meridian 
to ten o'clock post meridian. 

Sec 7. That of the expenses incurred in the maintenance of 
the free public and departmental library and reading-room, in- 
cluding all salaries of employees, one-half shall be paid by the 
United States and one-half by the District of Columbia, and it is 
hereby made the duty of the Commissioners of the District to 
include these expenses in their annual estimates submitted to 
Congress. 



LEJL 



